The practice was, however, by no means thus dismissed. Some time

later the subject writes: "I have again restarted masturbation
for the relief of localized feelings. One morning I was engaged
in reading a very heavy volume which, for convenience sake, I
held in my lap, leaning back on my chair. I had become deep in
my study for an hour or so when I became aware of certain
feelings roused by the weight of the book. Being tempted to see
what would happen by such conduct, I shifted so that the edge of
the volume came in closer contact. The pleasurable feelings
increased, so I gave myself up to my emotions for some thirty
minutes.

"Notwithstanding the intense pleasure I enjoyed for so long a
period, I maintain that it is wiser to refrain, and, although I
admit in the same breath that, by gentle treatment, such pleasure
may be harmless to the general health, it does lead to a desire
for solitude, which is not conducive to a happy frame of mind.
There is an accompanying reticence of speech concerning the
pleasure, which, therefore, appears to be unnatural, like the
eating of stolen fruit. After such an event, one seems to require
to fly to the woods, and to listen to the song of the birds, so
as to shake off after-effects."

In a letter dated some months later, she writes: "I think I have
risen above the masturbation habit." In the same letter the
writer remarks: "If I had consciously abnormal or unsatisfied
appetites I would satisfy them in the easiest and least harmful
way."

Again, eighteen months later, she writes: "It is curious to note
that for months this habit is forgotten, but awakens sometimes to
self-assertion. If a feeling of pressure is felt in the head, and
a slight irritation elsewhere, and experience shows that the time
has come for pacification, exquisite pleasure can be enjoyed,
never more than twice a month, and sometimes less often."

OBSERVATION VI.--Unmarried, actively engaged in the practice of
her profession. Well-developed, feminine in contour, but boyish
in manner and movements; strong, though muscles small, and
healthy, with sound nervous system; never had anæmia. Thick brown
hair; pubic hair thick, and hair on toes and legs up to
umbilicus; it began to appear at the age of 10 (before pubic
hair) and continued until 18. A few stray hairs round nipples,
and much dark down on upper lip, as well as light down on arms
and hands. Hips, normal; nates, small; labia minora, large; and
clitoris, deeply hooded. Hymen thick, vagina, probably small.
Considerable pigmentation of parts. Menstruation began at 15, but
not regular till 17; is painless and scanty; the better the state
of health, the less it is. No change of sexual or other feelings
connected with it; it lasts one to three days.

"I believe," she writes, "my first experience of physical sex
sensations was when I was about 16, and in sleep. But I did not
then recognize it, and seldom, indeed, gave the subject of sex a
thought. I was a child far beyond the age of childhood. The
accompanying dreams were disagreeable, but I cannot remember what
they were about. It was not until I was nearly 19 that I knew the
sexual orgasm in my waking state. It surprised me completely,
but I knew that I had known it before in my sleep.

"The knowledge came one summer when I was leading a rather
isolated life, and my mind was far from sex subjects, being deep
in books, Carlyle, Ruskin, Huxley, Darwin, Scott, etc. I noticed
that when I got up in the morning I felt very hot and
uncomfortable. The clitoris and the parts around were swollen and
erect, and often tender and painful. I had no idea what it was,
but found I was unable to pass my water for an hour or two. One
day, when I was straining a little to pass water, the full orgasm
occurred. The next time it happened, I tried to check it by
holding myself firmly, of course, with the opposite result. I do
not know that I found it highly pleasurable, but it was a very
great relief. I allowed myself a good many experiments, to come
to a conclusion in the matter, and I thought about it. I was much
too shy to speak to any one, and thought it was probably a sin. I
tried not to do it, and not to think about it, saying to myself
that surely I was lord of my body. But I found that the matter
was not entirely under my control. However unwilling or passive I
might be, there were times when the involuntary discomfort was
not in my keeping. My touching myself or not did not save me from
it. Because it sometimes gave me pleasure, I thought it might be
a form of self-indulgence, and did not do it until it could
scarcely be helped. Soon the orgasm began to occur fairly
frequently in my sleep, perhaps once or twice a week. I had no
erotic dreams, then or at any other time, but I had nights of
restless sleep, and woke as it occurred, dreaming that it was
happening, as, in fact, it was. At times I hardly awoke, but went
to sleep again in a moment. I continued for two or three years to
be sorely tried by day at frequent intervals. I acquired a
remarkable degree of control, so that, though one touch or
steadily directed thought would have caused the orgasm, I could
keep it off, and go to sleep without 'wrong doing.' Of course,
when I fell asleep, my control ended. All this gave me a good
deal of physical worry, and kept my attention unwillingly fixed
upon the matter. I do not think my body was readily irritable,
but I had unquestionably very strong sexual impulses.

"After a year or two, when I was working hard, I could not afford
the attention the control cost me, or the prolonged mitigated
sexual excitement it caused. I took drugs for a time, but they
lost effect, produced lassitude, and agreed with me badly. I
therefore put away my scruples and determined to try the effect
of giving myself an instant and business-like relief. Instead of
allowing my feelings to gather strength, I satisfied them out of
hand. Instead of five hours of heat and discomfort, I did not
allow myself five minutes, if I could help it.

"The effect was marvelous. I practically had no more trouble. The
thing rarely came to me at all by day, and though it continued at
times by night, it became less frequent and less strong; often it
did not wake me. The erotic images and speculations that had
begun to come to me died down. I left off being afraid of my
feelings, or, indeed, thinking about them. I may say that I had
decided that I should be obliged to lead a single life, and that
the less I thought about matters of sex, the more easy I should
find life. Later on I had religious ideas which helped me
considerably in my ideals of a decent, orderly, self-contained
life. I do not lay stress on these; they were not at all
emotional, and my physical and psychical development do not
appear to have run much on parallel lines. I had a strong moral
sense before I had a religious one, and a 'common-sense' which I
perhaps trusted more than either.

"When I was about 28 I thought I might perhaps leave off the
habit of regular relief I had got into. (It was not regular as
regards time, being anything from one day to six weeks.) The
change was probably made easier by a severe illness I had had. I
gave this abstinence a fair trial for several years (until I was
about 34), but my nocturnal manifestations certainly gathered
strength, especially when I got much better in health, and,
finally, as at puberty, began to worry my waking life. I reasoned
that by my attempt at abstinence I had only exchanged control for
uncontrol, and reverted to my old habits of relief, with the same
good results as before. The whole trouble subsided and I got
better at once. (The orgasm during sleep continued, and occurs
about once a fortnight; it is increased by change of air,
especially at the seaside, when it may occur on two or three
nights running.) I decided that, for the proper control of my
single life, relief was normal and right. It would be very
difficult for anyone to demonstrate the contrary to me. My aim
has always been to keep myself in the best condition of physical
and mental balance that a single person is capable of."

There is some interest in briefly reviewing the remarkable transformations
in the attitude toward masturbation from Greek times down to our own day.
The Greeks treated masturbation with little opprobrium. At the worst they
regarded it as unmanly, and Aristophanes, in various passages, connects
the practice with women, children, slaves, and feeble old men. Æschines
seems to have publicly brought it as a charge against Demosthenes that he
had practiced masturbation, though, on the other hand, Plutarch tells us
that Diogenes--described by Zeller, the historian of Greek philosophy, as
"the most typical figure of ancient Greece"--was praised by Chrysippus,
the famous philosopher, for masturbating in the market-place. The more
strenuous Romans, at all events as exemplified by Juvenal and Martial,
condemned masturbation more vigorously.[347] Aretæus, without alluding to
masturbation, dwells on the tonic effects of retaining the semen; but, on
the other hand, Galen regarded the retention of semen as injurious, and
advocated its frequent expulsion, a point of view which tended to justify
masturbation. In classical days, doubtless, masturbation and all other
forms of the auto-erotic impulse were comparatively rare. So much scope
was allowed in early adult age for homosexual and later for heterosexual
relationships that any excessive or morbid development of solitary
self-indulgence could seldom occur. The case was altered when Christian
ideals became prominent. Christian morality strongly proscribed sexual
relationships except under certain specified conditions. It is true that
Christianity discouraged all sexual manifestations, and that therefore its
ban fell equally on masturbation, but, obviously, masturbation lay at the
weakest line of defence against the assaults of the flesh; it was there
that resistance would most readily yield. Christianity thus probably led
to a considerable increase of masturbation. The attention which the
theologians devoted to its manifestations clearly bears witness to their
magnitude. It is noteworthy that Mohammedan theologians regarded
masturbation as a Christian vice. In Islam both doctrine and practice
tended to encourage sexual relationships, and not much attention was paid
to masturbation, nor even any severe reprobation directed against it. Omer
Haleby remarks that certain theologians of Islam are inclined to consider
the practice of masturbation in vogue among Christians as allowable to
devout Mussulmans when alone on a journey; he himself regards this as a
practice good neither for soul nor body (seminal emissions during sleep
providing all necessary relief); should, however, a Mussulman fall into
this error, God is merciful![348]

In Theodore's Penitential of the seventh century, forty days'
penance is prescribed for masturbation. Aquinas condemned
masturbation as worse than fornication, though less heinous than
other sexual offences against Nature; in opposition, also, to
those who believed that _distillatio_ usually takes place without
pleasure, he observed that it was often caused by sexual emotion,
and should, therefore, always be mentioned to the confessor.
Liguori also regarded masturbation as a graver sin than
fornication, and even said that _distillatio_, if voluntary and
with notable physical commotion, is without doubt a mortal sin,
for in such a case it is the beginning of a pollution. On the
other hand, some theologians have thought that _distillatio_ may
be permitted, even if there is some commotion, so long as it has
not been voluntarily procured, and Caramuel, who has been
described as a theological _enfant terrible_, declared that
"natural law does not forbid masturbation," but that proposition
was condemned by Innocent XI. The most enlightened modern
Catholic view is probably represented by Debreyne, who, after
remarking that he has known pious and intelligent persons who had
an irresistible impulse to masturbate, continues: "Must we
excuse, or condemn, these people? Neither the one nor the other.
If you condemn and repulse absolutely these persons as altogether
guilty, against their own convictions, you will perhaps throw
them into despair; if, on the contrary, you completely excuse
them, you maintain them in a disorder from which they may,
perhaps, never emerge. Adopt a wise middle course, and, perhaps,
with God's aid, you may often cure them."

Under certain circumstances some Catholic theologians have
permitted a married woman to masturbate. Thus, the Jesuit
theologian, Gury, asserts that the wife does not sin "_quæ se
ipsam tactibus excitat ad seminationem statim post copulam in quâ
vir solus seminavit_." This teaching seems to have been
misunderstood, since ethical and even medical writers have
expended a certain amount of moral indignation on the Church
whose theologians committed themselves to this statement. As a
matter of fact, this qualified permission to masturbate merely
rests on a false theory of procreation, which is clearly
expressed in the word _seminatio_. It was believed that
ejaculation in the woman is as necessary to fecundation as
ejaculation in the man. Galen, Avicenna, and Aquinas recognized,
indeed, that such feminine semination was not necessary; Sanchez,
however, was doubtful, while Suarez and Zacchia, following
Hippocrates, regarded it as necessary. As sexual intercourse
without fecundation is not approved by the Catholic Church, it
thus became logically necessary to permit women to masturbate
whenever the ejaculation of mucus had not occurred at or before
coitus.

The belief that the emission of vaginal mucus, under the
influence of sexual excitement in women, corresponded to
spermatic emission, has led to the practice of masturbation on
hygienic grounds. Garnier (_Célibat_, p. 255) mentions that
Mesué, in the eighteenth century, invented a special pessary to
take the place of the penis, and, as he stated, effect the due
expulsion of the feminine sperm.

Protestantism, no doubt, in the main accepted the general Catholic,
tradition, but the tendency of Protestantism, in reaction against the
minute inquisition of the earlier theologians, has always been to exercise
a certain degree of what it regarded as wholesome indifference toward the
less obvious manifestations of the flesh. Thus in Protestant countries
masturbation seems to have been almost ignored until Tissot, combining
with his reputation as a physician the fanaticism of a devout believer,
raised masturbation to the position of a colossal bogy which during a
hundred years has not only had an unfortunate influence on medical opinion
in these matters, but has been productive of incalculable harm to ignorant
youth and tender consciences. During the past forty years the efforts of
many distinguished physicians--a few of whose opinions I have already
quoted--have gradually dragged the bogy down from its pedestal, and now,
as I have ventured to suggest, there is a tendency for the reaction to be
excessive. There is even a tendency to-day to regard masturbation, with
various qualifications, as normal. Remy de Gourmont, for instance,
considers that masturbation is natural because it is the method by which
fishes procreate: "All things considered, it must be accepted that
masturbation is part of the doings of Nature. A different conclusion might
be agreeable, but in every ocean and under the reeds of every river,
myriads of beings would protest."[349] Tillier remarks that since
masturbation appears to be universal among the higher animals we are not
entitled to regard it as a vice; it has only been so considered because
studied exclusively by physicians under abnormal conditions.[350] Hirth,
while asserting that masturbation must be strongly repressed in the young,
regards it as a desirable method of relief for adults, and especially,
under some circumstances, for women.[351] Venturi, a well-known Italian
alienist, on the other hand, regards masturbation as strictly
physiological in youth; it is the normal and natural passage toward the
generous and healthy passion of early manhood; it only becomes abnormal
and vicious, he holds, when continued into adult life.

The appearance of masturbation at puberty, Venturi considers, "is
a moment in the course of the development of the function of that
organ which is the necessary instrument of sexuality." It finds
its motive in the satisfaction of an organic need having much
analogy with that which arises from the tickling of a very
sensitive cutaneous surface. In this masturbation of early
adolescence lies, according to Venturi, the germ of what will
later be love: a pleasure of the body and of the spirit,
following the relief of a satisfied need. "As the youth develops,
onanism becomes a sexual act comparable to coitus as a dream is
comparable to reality, imagery forming in correspondence with the
desires. In its fully developed form in adolescence," Venturi
continues, "masturbation has an almost hallucinatory character;
onanism at this period psychically approximates to the true
sexual act, and passes insensibly into it. If, however, continued
on into adult age, it becomes morbid, passing into erotic
fetichism; what in the inexperienced youth is the natural
auxiliary and stimulus to imagination, in the degenerate onanist
of adult age is a sign of arrested development. Thus, onanism,"
the author concludes, "is not always a vice such as is fiercely
combated by educators and moralists. It is the natural transition
by which we reach the warm and generous love of youth, and, in
natural succession to this, the tranquil, positive, matrimonial
love of the mature man." (Silvio Venturi, _Le Degenerazioni
Psico-sessuale_, 1892, pp. 6-9.)

It may be questioned whether this view is acceptable even for the
warm climate of the south of Europe, where the impulses of
sexuality are undoubtedly precocious. It is certainly not in
harmony with general experience and opinion in the north; this is
well expressed in the following passage by Edward Carpenter
(_International Journal of Ethics_, July, 1899): "After all,
purity (in the sense of continence) _is_ of the first importance
to boyhood. To prolong the period of continence in a boy's life
is to prolong the period of _growth_. This is a simple
physiological law, and a very obvious one; and, whatever other
things may be said in favor of purity, it remains, perhaps, the
most weighty. To introduce sensual and sexual habits--and one of
the worst of them is self-abuse--at an early age, is to arrest
growth, both physical and mental. And what is even more, it means
to arrest the capacity for affection. All experience shows that
the early outlet toward sex cheapens and weakens affectional
capacity."

I do not consider that we can decide the precise degree in which
masturbation may fairly be called normal so long as we take masturbation
by itself. We are thus, in conclusion, brought back to the point which I
sought to emphasize at the outset: masturbation belongs to a group of
auto-erotic phenomena. From one point of view it may be said that all
auto-erotic phenomena are unnatural, since the natural aim of the sexual
impulse is sexual conjunction, and all exercise of that impulse outside
such conjunction is away from the end of Nature. But we do not live in a
state of Nature which answers to such demands; all our life is
"unnatural." And as soon as we begin to restrain the free play of sexual
impulse toward sexual ends, at once auto-erotic phenomena inevitably
spring up on every side. There is no end to them; it is impossible to say
what finest elements in art, in morals, in civilization generally, may not
really be rooted in an auto-erotic impulse. "Without a certain overheating
of the sexual system," said Nietzsche, "we could not have a Raphael."
Auto-erotic phenomena are inevitable. It is our wisest course to recognize
this inevitableness of sexual and transmuted sexual manifestations under
the perpetual restraints of civilized life, and, while avoiding any
attitude of excessive indulgence or indifference,[352] to avoid also any
attitude of excessive horror, for our horror not only leads to the facts
being effectually veiled from our sight, but itself serves to manufacture
artificially a greater evil than that which we seek to combat.

The sexual impulse is not, as some have imagined, the sole root of the
most massive human emotions, the most brilliant human aptitudes,--of
sympathy, of art, of religion. In the complex human organism, where all
the parts are so many-fibred and so closely interwoven, no great
manifestation can be reduced to one single source. But it largely enters
into and molds all of these emotions and aptitudes, and that by virtue of
its two most peculiar characteristics: it is, in the first place, the
deepest and most volcanic of human impulses, and, in the second
place,--unlike the only other human impulse with which it can be compared,
the nutritive impulse,--it can, to a large extent, be transmuted into a
new force capable of the strangest and most various uses. So that in the
presence of all these manifestations we may assert that in a real sense,
though subtly mingled with very diverse elements, auto-erotism everywhere
plays its part. In the phenomena of auto-erotism, when we take a broad
view of those phenomena, we are concerned, not with a form of insanity,
not necessarily with a form of depravity, but with the inevitable
by-products of that mighty process on which the animal creation rests.


FOOTNOTES:

[289] For a bibliography of masturbation, see Rohleder, _Die
Masturbation_, pp. 11-18; also, Arthur MacDonald, _Le Criminel Type_, pp.
227 et seq.; cf. G. Stanley Hall, _Adolescence_, vol. i, pp. 432 _et seq._

[290] Oskar Berger, _Archiv für Psychiatrie_, Bd. 6, 1876.

[291] _Die Masturbation_, p. 41.

[292] Dukes, _Preservation of Health_, 1884, p. 150.

[293] G. Stanley Hall, _Adolescence_, vol. i, p. 434.

[294] F.S. Brockman, "A Study of the Moral and Religious Life of Students
in the United States," _Pedagogical Seminary_, September, 1902. Many
pitiful narratives are reproduced.

[295] Moraglia, "Die Onanie beim normalen Weibe und bei den Prostituten,"
_Zeitschrift für Criminal-Anthropologie_, 1897, p. 489. It should be added
that Moraglia is not a very critical investigator. It is probable,
however, that on this point his results are an approximation to the truth.

[296] Ernst, "Anthropological Researches on the Population of Venezuela,"
_Memoirs of the Anthropological Society_, vol. iii, 1870, p. 277.

[297] Niceforo, _Il Gergo nei Normali_, etc., 1897, cap. V.

[298] Debreyne, _Moechialogie_, p. 64. Yet theologians and casuists,
Debreyne remarks, frequently never refer to masturbation in women.

[299] Stanley Hall, op. cit., vol. i, p. 34. Hall mentions, also, that
masturbation is specially common among the blind.

[300] Moraglia, _Archivio di Psichiatria_, vol. xvi, fasc. 4 and 5, p.
313.

[301] See his careful study, "Die Sexuellen Perversitäten in der
Irrenanstalt," _Psychiatrische Bladen_, No. 2. 1899.

[302] Venturi, _Degenerazioni Psico-sessuali_, pp. 105, 133, 148, 152.

[303] J.P. West, _Transactions of the Ohio Pediatric Society_, 1895.
_Abstract in Medical Standard_, November, 1895; cases are also recorded by
J.T. Winter, "Self-abuse in Infancy and Childhood," _American Journal
Obstetrics_, June, 1902.

[304] Freud, _Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie_, pp. 36 et seq.

[305] G.E. Shuttleworth, _British Medical Journal_, October 3, 1903.

[306] See for a detailed study of sexuality in childhood, Moll's valuable
book, _Das Sexualleben des Kindes_; cf. vol. vi of these _Studies_, Ch.
II.

[307] This is, no doubt, the most common opinion, and it is frequently
repeated in text-books. It is scarcely necessary, however, to point out
that only the opinions of those who have given special attention to the
matter can carry any weight. R.W. Shufeldt ("On a Case of Female
Impotency," pp. 5-7) quotes the opinions of various cautious observers as
to the difficulty of detecting masturbation in women.

[308] This latter opinion is confirmed by Näcke so far as the insane are
concerned. In a careful study of sexual perversity in a large asylum,
Näcke found that, while moderate masturbation could be more easily traced
among men than among women, excessive masturbation was more common among
women. And, while among the men masturbation was most frequent in the
lowest grades of mental development (idiocy and imbecility), and least
frequent in the highest grades (general paralysis), in the women it was
the reverse. (P. Näcke, "Die Sexuellen Perversitäten in der Irrenanstalt,"
_Psychiatrische en Neurologische Bladen_, No. 2, 1899.)

[309] Mammary masturbation sometimes occurs; see, e.g., Rohleder, _Die
Masturbation_ (pp. 32-33); it is, however, rare.

[310] Hirschsprung pointed out this, indeed, many years ago, on the ground
of his own experience. And see Rohleder, op. cit., pp. 44-47.

[311] In many cases, of course, the physical precocity is associated with
precocity in sexual habits. An instructive case is reported (_Alienist and
Neurologist_, October, 1895) of a girl of 7, a beautiful child, of healthy
family, and very intelligent, who, from the age of three, was perpetually
masturbating, when not watched. The clitoris and mons veneris were those
of a fully-grown woman, and the child was as well informed upon most
subjects as an average woman. She was cured by care and hygienic
attention, and when seen last was in excellent condition. A medical friend
tells me of a little girl of two, whose external genital organs are
greatly developed, and who is always rubbing herself.

[312] R.T. Morris, of New York, has also pointed out the influence of
traditions in this respect. "Among boys," he remarks, "there are
traditions to the effect that self-abuse is harmful. Among girls, however,
there are no such saving traditions." Dr. Kiernan writes in a private
letter: "It has been by experience, that from ignorance or otherwise,
there are young women who do not look upon sexual manipulation with the
same fear that men do." Guttceit, similarly, remarks that men have been
warned of masturbation, and fear its evil results, while girls, even if
warned, attach little importance to the warning; he adds that in healthy
women, masturbation, even in excess, has little bad results. The attitude
of many women in this matter may be illustrated by the following passage
from a letter written by a medical friend in India: "The other day one of
my English women patients gave me the following reason for having taught
the 17-year-old daughter of a retired Colonel to masturbate: 'Poor girl,
she was troubled with dreams of men, and in case she should be tempted
with one, and become pregnant, I taught her to bring the feeling on
herself--as it is safer, and, after all, nearly as nice as with a man.'"

[313] H. Ellis, _Studies in the Psychology of Sex_, volume ii, "Sexual
Inversion," Chapter IV.

[314] See, also, the Appendix to the third volume of these _Studies_, in
which I have brought forward sexual histories of normal persons.

[315] E.H. Smith, also, states that from 25 to 35 is the age when most
women come under the physician's eye with manifest and pronounced habits
of masturbation.

[316] It may, however, be instructive to observe that at the end of the
volume we find an advertisement of "Dr. Robinson's Treatise on the Virtues
and Efficacy of a Crust of Bread, Eat Early in the Morning Fasting."

[317] Pouillet alone enumerates and apparently accepts considerably over
one hundred different morbid conditions as signs and results of
masturbation.

[318] "Augenkrankheiten bei Masturbanten," Knapp-Schweigger's _Archiv für
Augenheitkunde_, Bd. II, 1882, p. 198.

[319] Salmo Cohn, _Uterus und Auge_, 1890, pp. 63-66.

[320] _Fonctions du Cerveau_, 1825, vol. iii, p. 337.

[321] W. Ellis, _Treatise on Insanity_, 1838, pp. 335, 340.

[322] Clara Barrus, "Insanity in Young Women," _Journal of Nervous and
Mental Disease_, June, 1896.

[323] See, for instance, H. Emminghaus, "Die Psychosen des Kindesalters,"
Gerlandt's _Handbuch der Kinder-Krankheiten_, Nachtrag II, pp. 61-63.

[324] Christian, article "Onanisme," _Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des
Sciences Médicales_.

[325] Näcke, _Verbrechen und Wahnsinn beim Weibe_, 1894, p. 57.

[326] J.L.A. Koch, _Die Psychopathischen Minderwertigkeiten_, 1892, p. 273
et seq.

[327] J.G. Kiernan, _American Journal of Insanity_, July, 1877.

[328] Maudsley dealt, in his vigorous, picturesque manner, with the more
extreme morbid mental conditions sometimes found associated with
masturbation, in "Illustrations of a Variety of Insanity," _Journal of
Mental Science_, July, 1868.

[329] See, e.g., Löwenfeld, _Sexualleben und Nervenleiden_, 2d. ed., Ch.
VIII.

[330] Marro, _La Pubertà_, Turin, 1898, p. 174.

[331] E.C. Spitzka, "Cases of Masturbation," _Journal of Mental Science_,
July, 1888.

[332] Charles West, _Lancet_, November 17, 1866.

[333] Gowers, _Epilepsy_, 1881, p. 31. Löwenfeld believes that epileptic
attacks are certainly caused by masturbation. Féré thought that both
epilepsy and hysteria may be caused by masturbation.

[334] Ziemssen's _Handbuch_, Bd. XI.

[335] _Adolescence_, vol. i, p. 441.

[336] See a discussion of these points by Rohleder, _Die Masturbation_,
pp. 168-175.

[337] The surgeons, it may be remarked, have especially stated the
harmlessness of masturbation in too absolute a manner. Thus, John Hunter
(_Treatise on the Venereal Disease_, 1786, p. 200), after pointing out
that "the books on this subject have done more harm than good," adds, "I
think I may affirm that this act does less harm to the constitution in
general than the natural." And Sir James Paget, in his lecture on "Sexual
Hypochondriasis," said: "Masturbation does neither more nor less harm than
sexual intercourse practiced with the same frequency, in the same
conditions of general health and age and circumstances."

[338] It is interesting to note that an analogous result seems to hold
with animals. Among highly-bred horses excessive masturbation is liable to
occur with injurious results. It is scarcely necessary to point out that
highly-bred horses are apt to be abnormal.

[339] With regard to the physical signs, the same conclusion is reached by
Legludic (in opposition to Martineau) on the basis of a large experience.
He has repeatedly found, in young girls who acknowledged frequent
masturbation, that the organs were perfectly healthy and normal, and his
convictions are the more noteworthy, since he speaks as a pupil of
Tardieu, who attached very grave significance to the local signs of sexual
perversity and excess. (Legludic, _Notes et Observations de Médecine
Légale_, 1896, p. 95.) Matthews Duncan (_Goulstonian Lectures on Sterility
in Women_, 1884, p. 97) was often struck by the smallness, and even
imperfect development, of the external genitals of women who masturbate.
Clara Barrus considers that there is no necessary connection between
hypertrophy of the external female genital organs and masturbation, though
in six cases of prolonged masturbation she found such a condition in three
(_American Journal of Insanity_, April, 1895, p. 479). Bachterew denies
that masturbation produces enlargement of the penis, and Hammond considers
there is no evidence to show that it enlarges the clitoris, while Guttceit
states that it does not enlarge the nymphæ; this, however, is doubtful. It
would not suffice in many cases to show that large sexual organs are
correlated with masturbation; it would still be necessary to show whether
the size of the organs stood to masturbation in the relation of effect or
of cause.

[340] Thus, Bechterew ("La Phobie du Regard," _Archives de Neurologie_,
July, 1905) considers that masturbation plays a large part in producing
the morbid fear of the eyes of others.

[341] It is especially an undesirable tendency of masturbation, that it
deadens the need for affection, and merely eludes, instead of satisfying,
the sexual impulse. "Masturbation," as Godfrey well says (_The Science of
Sex_, p. 178), "though a manifestation of sexual activity, is not a sexual
act in the higher, or even in the real fundamental sense. For sex implies
duality, a characteristic to which masturbation can plainly lay no claim.
The physical, moral, and mental reciprocity which gives stability and
beauty to a normal sexual intimacy, are as foreign to the masturbator as
to the celibate. In a sense, therefore, masturbation is as complete a
negative of the sexual life as chastity itself. It is, therefore, an
evasion of, not an answer to, the sexual problem; and it will ever remain
so, no matter how surely we may be convinced of its physical
harmlessness."

[342] "I learnt that dangerous supplement," Rousseau tells us (Part I, Bk.
III), "which deceives Nature. This vice, which bashfulness and timidity
find so convenient, has, moreover, a great attraction for lively
imaginations, for it enables them to do what they will, so to speak, with
the whole fair sex, and to enjoy at pleasure the beauty who attracts them,
without having obtained her consent."

[343] "Ich hatte sie wirklich verloren, und die Tollheit, mit der ich
meinen Fehler an mir selbst rächte, indem ich auf mancherlei unsinnige
Weise in meine physische Natur sturmte, um der sittlichen etwas zu Leide
zu thun, hat sehr viel zu den körperlichen Uebeln beigetragen, unter denen
ich einige der besten Jahre meines Lebens verlor; ja ich wäre vielleicht
an diesem Verlust vollig zu Grunde gegangen, hätte sich hier nicht das
poetische Talent mit seinen Heilkraften besonders hülfreich erwiesen."
This is scarcely conclusive, and it may be added that there were many
reasons why Goethe should have suffered physically at this time, quite
apart from masturbation. See, e.g., Bielschowsky, _Life of Goethe_, vol.
i, p. 88.

[344] _Les Obsessions_, vol. ii, p. 136.

[345] A somewhat similar classification has already been made by Max
Dessoir, who points out that we must distinguish between onanists _aus
Noth_, and onanists _aus Leidenschaft_, the latter group alone being of
really serious importance. The classification of Dallemagne is also
somewhat similar; he distinguishes _onanie par impulsion_, occurring in
mental degeneration and in persons of inferior intelligence, from _onanie
par evocation ou obsession_.

[346] W. Xavier Sudduth, "A Study in the Psycho-physics of Masturbation,"
_Chicago Medical Recorder_, March, 1898. Haig, who reaches a similar
conclusion, has sought to find its precise mechanism in the
blood-pressure. "As the sexual act produces lower and falling
blood-pressure," he remarks, "it will of necessity relieve conditions
which are due to high and rising blood-pressure, such, for instance, as
mental depression and bad temper; and, unless my observation deceives me,
we have here a connection between conditions of high blood-pressure with
mental and bodily depression and acts of masturbation, for this act will
relieve these conditions and tend to be practiced for this purpose."
(_Uric Acid_, 6th edition, p. 154.)

[347] Northcote discusses the classic attitude towards masturbation,
_Christianity and Sex Problems_, p. 233.

[348] _El Ktab_, traduction de Paul de Régla, Paris, 1893.

[349] Remy de Gourmont, _Physique de l'Amour_, p. 133.

[350] Tillier, _L'Instinct Sexuel_, Paris, 1889, p. 270.

[351] G. Hirth, _Wege zur Heimat_, p. 648.

[352] Féré, in the course of his valuable work, _L'Instinct Sexuel_,
stated that my conclusion is that masturbation is normal, and that
"_l'indulgence s'impose_." I had, however, already guarded myself against
this misinterpretation.




APPENDIX A.

THE INFLUENCE OF MENSTRUATION ON THE POSITION OF WOMEN.


A question of historical psychology which, so far as I know, has never
been fully investigated is the influence of menstruation in constituting
the emotional atmosphere through which men habitually view women.[353] I
do not purpose to deal fully with this question, because it is one which
may be more properly dealt with at length by the student of culture and by
the historian, rather than from the standpoint of empirical psychology. It
is, moreover, a question full of complexities in regard to which it is
impossible to speak with certainty. But we here strike on a factor of such
importance, such neglected importance, for the proper understanding of the
sexual relations of men and women, that it cannot be wholly ignored.

Among the negroes of Surinam a woman must live in solitude during the time
of her period; it is dangerous for any man or woman to approach her, and
when she sees a person coming near she cries out anxiously: "_Mi kay! Mi
kay!_"--I am unclean! I am unclean! Throughout the world we find traces of
the custom of which this is a typical example, but we must not too hastily
assume that this custom is evidence of the inferior position occupied by
semi-civilized women. It is necessary to take a broad view, not only of
the beliefs of semi-civilized man regarding menstruation, but of his
general beliefs regarding the supernatural forces of the world.

There is no fragment of folk-lore so familiar to the European world as
that which connects woman with the serpent. It is, indeed, one of the
foundation stones of Christian theology.[354] Yet there is no fragment of
folk-lore which remains more obscure. How has it happened that in all
parts of the world the snake or his congeners, the lizard and the
crocodile, have been credited with some design, sinister or erotic, on
women?

Of the wide prevalence of the belief there can be no doubt. Among the Port
Lincoln tribe of South Australia a lizard is said to have divided man from
woman.[355] Among the Chiriguanos of Bolivia, on the appearance of
menstruation, old women ran about with sticks to hunt the snake that had
wounded the girl. Frazer, who quotes this example from the "_Lettres
édifiantes et curieuses_," also refers to a modern Greek folk-tale,
according to which a princess at puberty must not let the sun shine upon
her, or she would be turned into a lizard.[356] The lizard was a sexual
symbol among the Mexicans. In some parts of Brazil at the onset of puberty
a girl must not go into the woods for fear of the amorous attacks of
snakes, and so it is also among the Macusi Indians of British Guiana,
according to Schomburgk. Among the Basutos of South Africa the young girls
must dance around the clay image of a snake. In Polynesian mythology the
lizard is a very sacred animal, and legends represent women as often
giving birth to lizards.[357] At a widely remote spot, in Bengal, if you
dream of a snake a child will be born to you, reports Sarat Chandra
Mitra.[358] In the Berlin Museum für Volkerkunde there is a carved wooden
figure from New Guinea of a woman into whose vulva a crocodile is
inserting its snout, while the same museum contains another figure of a
snake-like crocodile crawling out of a woman's vulva, and a third figure
shows a small round snake with a small head, and closely resembling a
penis, at the mouth of the vagina. All these figures are reproduced by
Ploss and Bartels. Even in modern Europe the same ideas prevail. In
Portugal, according to Reys, it is believed that during menstruation women