3. If one disregards the patients of one's own practice and strives to
comprehend a wider field of experience, he will in two directions
encounter facts which will prevent him from assuming inversions as a
degenerative sign.

(_a_) It must be considered that inversion was a frequent manifestation
among the ancient nations at the height of their culture. It was an
institution endowed with important functions. (_b_) It is found to be
unusually prevalent among savages and primitive races, whereas the term
degeneration is generally limited to higher civilization (I. Bloch).
Even among the most civilized nations of Europe, climate and race have a
most powerful influence on the distribution of, and attitude toward,
inversion.[8]

*Innateness.*--Only for the first and most extreme class of inverts, as
can be imagined, has innateness been claimed, and this from their own
assurance that at no time in their life has their sexual impulse
followed a different course. The fact of the existence of two other
classes, especially of the third, is difficult to reconcile with the
assumption of its being congenital. Hence, the propensity of those
holding this view to separate the group of absolute inverts from the
others results in the abandonment of the general conception of
inversion. Accordingly in a number of cases the inversion would be of a
congenital character, while in others it might originate from other
causes.

In contradistinction to this conception is that which assumes inversion
to be an _acquired_ character of the sexual impulse. It is based on the
following facts. (1) In many inverts (even absolute ones) an early