Note 158 — Chapter VI · THE SEXUAL INSTINCT.

This psychological thesis has been maintained, in all its rigour, by Delbœuf: “That girl and that young man, in being attracted to one another, obey the will, unknown to both, of a spermatozoid, an ovule. But it may be taken as certain that this will is not unknown either to the spermatozoid or the ovule; both know what they want, and seek it. To this end they give their orders to their respective brains through the medium of the heart, and the brain obeys without knowing why. Sometimes it imagines that it has been convinced by reason and explains its own choice to itself. At bottom it has been but an unconscious instrument in the hand of an imperceptible workman who knew both what he wanted and what he was doing.” (Revue philosophique, March 1891, p. 257.)