The Foundations of Personality by Abraham Myerson
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page 19 of 422 (04%)
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tendencies, loss of memory and mental and physical torpor."
A very profound effect on character and personality, exclusive of intelligence, is that of the sex glands. One need not accept the Freudian extravagances regarding the way in which the sex feelings and impulses enter into our thoughts, emotions, purposes and acts. No unbiased observer of himself or his fellows but knows that the satisfaction or non-satisfaction of the sex feeling, its excitation or its suppression are of great importance in the destinies of character. Further, man as herdsman and man as tyrant have carried on huge experiments to show how necessary to normal character the sex glands are. As herdsman he has castrated his male Bos and obtained the ox. And the ox is the symbol of patience, docility, steady labor, without lust or passion,--and the very opposite of his non-castrated brother, the bull. The bull is the symbol of irritability and unteachableness, who will not be easily yoked or led and who is the incarnation of lust and passion. One is the male transformed into neuter gender; and the other is rampant with the fierceness of his sex. Compare the eunuch and the normal man. If the eunuch state be imposed in infancy, the shape of the body, its hairiness, the quality of the voice and the character are altered in characteristic manner. The eunuch essentially is neither man nor woman, but a repelling Something intermediate. Enough has been said to show that mind and character are dependent upon the health of the brain and the glands of the |
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