Note 50 — Chapter I · —INTRODUCTION.

Hirschfeld and others have pointed out, very truly, that inverts are less prone than normal persons to regard caste and social position. This innately democratic attitude renders it easier for them than for ordinary people to rise to what Cyples has called the "ecstasy of humanity," the emotional attitude, that is to say, of those rare souls of whom it may be said, in the same writer's words, that "beggars' rags to their unhesitating lips grew fit for kissing because humanity had touched the garb." Edward Carpenter (Intermediate Types among Primitive Folk, p. 83) remarks that great ethical leaders have often exhibited feminine traits, and adds: "It becomes easy to suppose of those early figures—who once probably were men—those Apollos, Buddhas, Dionysus, Osiris, and so forth—to suppose that they too were somewhat bisexual in temperament, and that it was really largely owing to that fact that they were endowed with far-reaching powers and became leaders of mankind."