It is considerably comic to hear a tendency as old as mankind, in fact as old as life itself, accused as being "unnatural", and this from a crowd that uses all manner of gadgetry and gimmick to outwit nature: coitus interruptus, contraceptives of various sorts, the "rhythm method", even abortion.

But! they'll say-homosexual love goes against the intent of nature, which is to reproduce the species. Has nature made you part of its intent? What is your annual bill for "prophylaxis"? And are you quite sure you are not devaluing heterosexual love itself by reducing it to a simple matter of conservation? You will need to explain "sophisticated love", for example.

In his treatise on General Psychology, M. Pradines outlines the transcendence of human love in relation to the procreative instinct: "Love is no snare of nature which masks its true ends beneath apparent ones and induces us by the allure of some woman into the service of the species, much as a shiny cape catches the bull on the sword. One is well-based to believe that the union of the sexes and their devotion one to the other, in which is brought together all conscious aspiration of love, is fully sufficient to satisfy the purpose of nature in a world which has taken as its first law that of propagation."

According to Simmel, human love exceeds sensuality without excluding it, whereas it "altogether excludes a specific interest in propagation... the fact of the lover suggests that it is now time for life to be turned to the service of love, and that, in some respects, it exists only to let love exist." The legendary lovers: Tristan and Isolde, Romeo and Juliet, Des Grieux and Manon, none had offspring.

mate

Homosexuality-whether one wishes it or not-is a mode of human love. If we are to accept the most conservative figure offered by Havelock Ellis, 2% of the population is confirmedly homosexual, unlikely to change. Beyond this, there is an unknown proportion of bisexuals who -like Socrates and Montaigne with women, rear offspring. According to Wilhelm Steckel, All Persons Are Bisexual, but 98% repress their homosexuality and 2% their heterosexuality. The heteros sublimate their homophilia in such things as patriotism, political or religious fervor; the remainder sublimate their heterosexuality in esthetic and humanitarian concerns, which-offspring lacking-are their contributions to the human legacy.

It is now well to turn to the specialists for some explanations. Successively, let us approach the biologist, the sociologist, and the psychologist with this question: "Do facts justify the intolerance of the social mass toward homosexuality and the homosexuals?"

The biologist sees homosexuality as a matter of hormonal activity: each man to the morals of his glands. Everyone is now aware that his body produces, in ratios, both masculine and feminine sex substances, and that it is not alone the homosexual, but the heterosexual as well, who bears within him-in latent potential

characteristics of the opposite sex. The body's maturation does not culminate until the twenty-third year of life, on the average. Until then, the sexual instinct is not wholly determined (Krafft-Ebing) The three main groupings of sexual hormones-testosterone, estradiol, progesterone-have a most closely related chemistry. Experiments have shown that the solution, the method of administration, the strength of dosage, all figure greatly in the nature of reactions tripped by the sex hormones. By modifying the basic molecule one may, for example, intensify either the male or the female activity of the dehydroandrosterone. "By modifications of the underlying dehydroandrosterone molecule, it is possible to induce the gamut of sexual tendency, from the extremely feminine to the most masculine... this fact helps us understand how a single gland is able to produce both Estrogens and Androgens" (Louis Gallien, Sexuality). I have a word for the harsh critic of homosexuality. I suggest he tremble just a bit when he considers this subtle chemistry at the taproots of his vaunted heterosexuality. "Men will never sufficiently know the awesome diversity of their basic selves; and how much less they know from never having been that which they scorn or hate" (Jean Rostand, Thoughts of a Biologist). Undoubtedly society has the right to protect itself from antisocial influences, but when an "influence" leaves behind neither disorder nor public scandal, it is plain that society has no right of torment-concludes the Biologist.

The Sociologist addresses himself to the divergent sex-attitudes assumed by society through the course of history. The newspaper The Express, issue of January 30, 1954, carries an important extract from the book Sex in History, by Gordon Rattray Taylor. "The history of civilization