Note 116 — Chapter II · —THE STUDY OF SEXUAL INVERSION.

"Eugen Dühren" (Iwan Bloch) remarks, however (Neue Forschungen über den Marquis de Sade und seine Zeit, p. 436), that de Sade in his Aline et Valcour seems to recognize that inversion is sometimes inborn, or at least natural, and apt to develop at a very early age, in spite of all provocations to the normal attitude. "And if this inclination were not natural," he makes Sarmiento say, "would the impression of it be received in childhood?... Let us study better this indulgent Nature before daring to fix her limits." Still earlier, in 1676 (as Schouten has pointed out, Sexual-Probleme, January, 1910, p. 66), an Italian priest called Carretto recognized that homosexual tendencies are innate.