Primitive Significance of Dancing in Animals and Man--Dancing is a Potent
Agent for Producing Tumescence--The Element of Truth in the Comparison of
the Sexual Impulse with an Evacuation, Especially of the Bladder--Both
Essentially Involve Nervous Explosions--Their Intimate and Sometimes
Vicarious Relationships--Analogy between Coitus and Epilepsy--Analogy of
the Sexual Impulse to Hunger--Final Object of the Impulses of Tumescence
and Detumescence.


The term "sexual instinct" may be said to cover the whole of the
neuropsychic phenomena of reproduction which man shares with the lower
animals. It is true that much discussion has taken place concerning the
proper use of the term "instinct," and some definitions of instinctive
action would appear to exclude the essential mechanism of the process
whereby sexual reproduction is assured. Such definitions scarcely seem
legitimate, and are certainly unfortunate. Herbert Spencer's definition of
instinct as "compound reflex action" is sufficiently clear and definite
for ordinary use.

A fairly satisfactory definition of instinct is that supplied by
Dr. and Mrs. Peckham in the course of their study _On the
Instincts and Habits of Solitary Wasps_. "Under the term
'instinct,'" they say, "we place all complex acts which are
performed previous to experience and in a similar manner by all
members of the same sex and race, leaving out as non-essential,
at this time, the question of whether they are or are not
accompanied by consciousness." This definition is quoted with
approval by Lloyd Morgan, who modifies and further elaborates it
(_Animal Behavior_, 1900, p. 21). "The distinction between
instinctive and reflex behavior," he remarks, "turns in large