But while there can be no doubt about the amply adequate character of the existing social reaction to all manifestations of perverted sexuality, the question still remains how far not merely the law, but also the state of public opinion, should be modified in the light of such a psychological study as we have here undertaken.  It is clear that this public opinion, molded chiefly or entirely with reference to gross vice, tends to be unduly violent in its reaction.  What, then, is the reasonable attitude of society toward the congenital sexual invert?  It seems to lie in the avoidance of two extremes.  On the one hand, it cannot be expected to tolerate the invert who flouts his perversion in its face, and assumes that, because he would rather take his pleasure with a soldier or a policeman than with their sisters, he is of finer clay than the vulgar herd.  On the other, it might well refrain from crushing with undiscerning ignorance beneath a burden of shame the subject of an abnormality which, as we have seen, has not been found incapable of fine uses.  Inversion is an aberration from the usual course of nature.  But the clash of contending elements which must often mark the history of such a deviation results now and again—­by no means infrequently—­in nobler activities than those yielded by the vast majority who are born to consume the fruits of the earth.  It bears, for the most part, its penalty in the structure of its own organism.  We are bound to protect the helpless members of society against the invert.  If we go farther, and seek to destroy the invert himself before he has sinned against society, we exceed the warrant of reason, and in so doing we may, perhaps, destroy also those children of the spirit which possess sometimes a greater worth than the children of the flesh.

Here we may leave this question of sexual inversion.  In dealing with it I have sought to avoid that attitude of moral superiority which is so common in the literature of this subject, and have refrained from pointing out how loathsome this phenomenon is, or how hideous that.  Such an attitude is as much out of place in scientific investigation as it is in judicial investigation, and may well be left to the amateur.  The physician who feels nothing but disgust at the sight of disease is unlikely to bring either succor to his patients or instruction to his pupils.

That the investigation we have here pursued is not only profitable to us in succoring the social organism and its members, but also in bringing light into the region of sexual psychology, is now, I hope, clear to every reader who has followed me to this point.  There are a multitude of social questions which we cannot face squarely and honestly unless we possess such precise knowledge as has been here brought together concerning the part played by the homosexual tendency in human life.  Moreover, the study of this perverted tendency stretches beyond itself;

                            “O’er that art
    Which you say adds to Nature, is an art
    That Nature makes.”