STUDIES IN THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX, VOLUME II
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.
It has been remarked by Professor Wilhelm Ostwald that
the problem of
homosexuality is a problem left over to us by the Middle
Ages, which for
five hundred years dealt with inverts as it dealt with
heretics and
witches. To regard the matter thus is to emphasize its
social and
humanitarian interest rather than its biological and
psychological
significance. It is no doubt this human interest of the
question of
inversion, rather than its scientific importance, great
as the latter is,
which is mainly responsible for the remarkable activity
with which the
study of homosexuality has been carried on during recent
years.
The result has been that, during the fourteen years that
have passed since
the last edition of this _Study_ was issued, so vast an
amount of work has
been carried on in this field that the preparation of a
new edition of the
book has been a long and serious task. Nearly every page
