sentiments in mankind. Before leaving this subject, however, it will be useful to note a few more facts which, from the point of view of sexual psychology, bring animals and men near to each other.
The old Cartesian paradox, which makes the animal an unconscious machine, has still many partisans. A widely-prevailing prejudice insists that animals always obey blind instincts, while man alone, homo sapiens, made after the image of God, weighs motives, deliberates and chooses. Now, as procreation constitutes one of the great necessities of organised beings, and is an imperious law which no species can elude without disappearing, surely we ought to find amongst animals the most exact regularity in the acts connected with it. Man alone ought to have the privilege of introducing caprice and free choice into love. It is not so, however. On this side of his nature, as on all the others, man and animal approach, resemble, and copy each other. In his celebrated invocation to Venus, Lucretius has truly said, proclaiming the universal empire of the instinct of reproduction—
"Per te quoniam genus omne animantum
Concipitur, visitque exortum lumine solis."
The animal, as well as the morally developed man, is capable of preference and individual passion; he does not yield blindly and passively to sexual love.
According to observers and breeders, it is the female who is specially susceptible of sentimental selection. The male, even the male of birds, is more ardent than the female, that is to say, more intoxicated and more sharply pricked by instinct, and thus generally accepts any female whatever: all are alike to him. This is the rule, but it is not without exceptions; thus, the male pheasant shows a singular aversion to certain hens. Amongst the long-*tailed ducks some females have evidently a particular charm for the males, and are courted more than the others.[1] The pigeon of the dovecot shows a strong aversion to the species modified by breeders, which he regards as deteriorated.[2] Stallions are often capricious. It was necessary, for example,
