Publisher's Synopsis
In the National Roman Museum, there is a naked idol, the Sleeping Hermaphrodite, an incarnation in marble of the total biological beauty and complete gender identity of the two sexes fused into one form. Hermaphrodite presents us with a mystery, namely, the sex instinct. Instinct is the dynamic of Life Itself.
Things are not well with our instinct. Even so, there is a natural tendency toward health. That is eros. Ministering to our need and longing, eros draws us on, to the touch, to intimacy, to human fulfillment.
(Instinct is volume two of ROMAN RUMINATIONS, "the Psychology of the Human as Enculturated Animal".)