FOREWORD All of us like to think that our actions and reactions are a result of logical thought processes, but the fact is that suggestion influences our thinking a great deal more than logic. Consciously or unconsciously, our feelings about almost everything are largely molded by ready-made opinions and attitudes fostered by our mass methods of communication. We cannot buy a bar of soap or a filtered cigarette without paying tribute to the... more...

CHAPTER IINTRODUCTION Science. Before attempting to define psychology, it will be helpful to make some inquiry into the nature of science in general. Science is knowledge; it is what we know. But mere knowledge is not science. For a bit of knowledge to become a part of science, its relation to other bits of knowledge must be found. In botany, for example, bits of knowledge about plants do not make a science of botany. To have a science of... more...

I THE SEXUAL ABERRATIONS The fact of sexual need in man and animal is expressed in biology by the assumption of a "sexual impulse." This impulse is made analogous to the impulse of taking nourishment, and to hunger. The sexual expression corresponding to hunger not being found colloquilly, science uses the expression "libido." Popular conception makes definite assumptions concerning the nature and qualities of this sexual impulse. It is... more...

CHAPTER I THE PROBLEM DEFINED What is sex? Asexual and mixed reproduction; Origin of sexual reproduction; Advantage of sex in chance of survival; Germ and body cells; Limitations of biology in social problems; Sex always present in higher animals; Sex in mammals; The sex problem in the human species; Application of laboratory method. Sex, like all complicated phenomena, defies being crowded into a simple definition. In an animal or... more...

RELIGION AND NEUROLOGY It is with no small amount of trepidation that I take my place behind this desk, and face this learned audience. To us Americans, the experience of receiving instruction from the living voice, as well as from the books, of European scholars, is very familiar. At my own University of Harvard, not a winter passes without its harvest, large or small, of lectures from Scottish, English, French, or German representatives of the... more...

INTRODUCTION The medical profession is justly conservative. Human life should not be considered as the proper material for wild experiments. Conservatism, however, is too often a welcome excuse for lazy minds, loath to adapt themselves to fast changing conditions. Remember the scornful reception which first was accorded to Freud's discoveries in the domain of the unconscious. When after years of patient observations, he finally decided to... more...

THE CREATION OF WOMAN This old Oriental legend is so exquisitely charming, so superior to the Biblical narrative of the creation of woman, that it deserves to be reproduced in Woman: Her Sex and Love Life. There are several variants of this legend, but I reproduce it as it appeared in the first issue of The Critic and Guide, January, 1903. At the beginning of time, Twashtri—the Vulcan of Hindu mythology—created the world. But... more...

INTRODUCTION Having read with much care the proof sheets of this book, I am prepared to say three things about it, and it gives me pleasure to say them here. THE BOOK IS WELL NAMED. "THE UNFOLDING LIFE." Turn which way we will, we see life unfolding all about us, and yet how faintly are its mysteries understood! And is it not the one thing above all others, which teachers, mothers, fathers and all of us, need to understand? It is well... more...

THE MIND AND ITS EDUCATION CHAPTER I THE MIND, OR CONSCIOUSNESS We are to study the mind and its education; but how? It is easy to understand how we may investigate the great world of material things about us; for we can see it, touch it, weigh it, or measure it. But how are we to discover the nature of the mind, or come to know the processes by which consciousness works? For mind is intangible; we cannot see it, feel it, taste it, or handle... more...

EROTIC SYMBOLISM. I. The Definition of Erotic Symbolism—Symbolism of Act and Symbolism of Object—Erotic Fetichism—Wide extension of the symbols of Sex—The Immense Variety of Possible Erotic Fetiches—The Normal Foundations of Erotic Symbolism—Classification of the Phenomena—The Tendency to Idealize the Defects of a Beloved Person—Stendhal's "Crystallization." By "erotic symbolism" I mean... more...