At first my results were fairly
satisfactory; but, as my data increased year by year, I found that these
curves were contradicting one another, and therefore concluded that I had
selected unnatural periods for my averaging. My first attempted remedy was
to arrange the months in the pairs December-January, February-March, etc.,
instead of in January-February, March-April, etc.; but with these pairs I
fared no better than with the former. I then arranged the months in the
triplets, January-February-March, etc.; and the results are graphically
recorded on Chart 7. Here, again, comment would be quite futile, but I
need only point out that, _on the whole_, the sexual activity rises
steadily during the first nine months in the year to its maximum in
September, and then sinks rapidly and abruptly during the next three to
its minimum in December.
The study of these curves suggests two interesting questions, to neither
of which, however, do the data afford us an answer.
In the first place, are the alterations, in my case, of the maximum of the
discharges from March and June in the earlier years to September in the
later, and the interpolation of a new secondary maximum in January,
correlated with the increase in age; or is the discrepancy due simply to a
temporary irregularity that would have been equally averaged out had I
recorded the discharges of 1881-89 instead of those from 1887 to 1897?
The second question is one of very great importance--socially, ethically,
and physically.
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