personal likings or antipathies. In the complex educational and cultural environment of modern times, preadolescent consciousness is filled more and more with preconditioning images and influences. These continue to make more and more involved the problems of adolescent sexual adjustments.

It is logical to assume that a child whose family environment and native interest dispose him or her to strong cultural interests is likely to develop introspective tendencies at an early age. The impacts of art and music, of travel, of thoughtfuladult conversation and instruction, make their keenest impressions during this period, and arouse the strongest emotions and cultural attractions: Under such circumstances, the most careful and sensible preadolescent guidance becomes mandatory. The young man or woman who never thought too seriously

1 about anything until after the adolescent period risks for less chance of inversion than one of similar age who, in preadolesence, became engrossed in introspective thought. This is not to say that early introversion will invariablbly or even usually lead to active sexual inversion, or that a young child should be discouraged from taking an interest in the serious questions of ethics, art or science. Yet we must realize that all cultural values tend to stimulate subjective more than objective interests, to emphasize the inner conditions of consciousness, rather than external appearances or relationships. This, in preadolescent years, before any sexual pattern has been set, can and often does predispose to some degree of inversion which will be actually experienced at the time of sexual maturity. Whether this degree of inversion will be great or small, whether it will 20

be suppressed or acted upon, whether it will even be brought in conscious knowledge or not, and whether or not it will result in personal or social maladjustments-these possibilities hinge upon many other factors of character and environment which are not dependent upon sexuality itself.

There are several reasons why serious religious interests often produce an unsettled attitude towards erotic experience, especially in cases where, for other reasons, the sexual bias is not clearly defined or established. Religious interests involve the most pressing personal questions which can occupy the human mindquestions of self-identity, of purpose, of time, change, mortality, permanence, etc. Not content with immediate experience, or with the appearances of things, the serious religio: s thinker, regardless of formal creed, is primarily engaged in seeking inner identity with the realities which underly his own and universal being. Outward differences appear to be of much less importance than inward unities and identities. There is a constant quest for sameness, for singleness, for constancy, for the unchanging-and because these qualities cannot be found in the kaleidoscope of sensory experience, thought must, of necessity, turn inward. This is the critical point, from which individual character will determine whether or not the ingoing impetus of thought will remain healthy, and become finally productive in terms of cultural vaule and socia! leadership. There is, of course, no general rule. The process of personality growth has as many degrees and variations as there are people, and it would be difficult to find, except among religious values, the standards of quality by which this process can be inspired, guided, and finally

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leasured by tests of individual rorih. Introverted thought may find self stopped short at a certain oint, with morbid and undesirable esults. Or it may climb on to reach hat plane of ethical and spiritual ertainties, and of creative imaginaon, from which have acted our reatest cultural and social leaders. deally, introversion follows this later course. If, at first, it produces a withdrawal from the immediate realies of environment, this is only a ecessary means towards that end Then thought begins to emerge onto level of knowledge wherein are een the inner principles of growth ind logic which unite all living nings.

Somewhere, somehow, in the inricate picture of personality-growth, here arise in the mind the erotic mages, which, in the adult, give Ictual directions to sexual behavior. No one with any sexual potency is xempt from the associations by which the mind gives direction to he sexual impulse. It seems well greed that there is no one factor which determines whether these im:ges will be heteroor homoerotic in haracter. Indeed, it would be safe o say that not just a few, but every actor in preadolescent experience as some part to play in setting the tage for sexual behavior in adult ife. Certainly the child-introvert will, it the time of adolesence, be unusuily predisposed to accept homoerotic images. Heterosexual images nay or may not outweigh them, but here is no reason why they ever hould not, providing those responible are able to set a desirable heterosexual example for the child, Is to its future role of husband or vife, and providing the subject of inersion is placed in broad daylight ind explained for exactly what it is, Ind providing that human sexuality

is disassociated from any implication of disgrace. It has been remarked before that it is not man's bodily needs or impulses that disgrace him, 'but his tendency to become dominated by them, at the expense of moral stature and at the expense of his usefulness to society.

Many of us have the misimpression that man's erotic interests and his religious interests are in necessary conflict. There have certainly been many allegations to this effect, from some religious quarters. It is very true that serious students of religious thought seek to become as independent as possible of sex as well as of any other animal appetite-not because these things are disgraceful, in themselvves, but because they are a distraction from the subjective values of permanence and spiritual self-suffiency in which such persons are primarily interested. However, no social rule can be justly or effectively imposed in this connection, except those forbidding actions which impose upon the rights, preferences, and opportunities of others. If education and social leadership cannot inspire rectitude in human conduct, then nothing can. History contains ample evidence that no other influence qan produce lasting and effective results in this sphere.

If it can be said that introversion leads occasionally to active inversion, then it must be added that the active invert is, without exception, also of a predominately introvert nature and thus must, through introspective methods, reach for that inner stability which the mature heterosexual achieves through other processes. The introvert nature can be turned into a major asset, in fact the invert must use this asset actively, if it is to have effect as such. This use involves all studies, dis21