"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

are liable to be bitten by lizards, and to guard against this risk they

wear drawers during the period. In Germany, again, it was believed, up to

the eighteenth century at least, that the hair of a menstruating woman, if

buried, would turn into a snake. It may be added that in various parts of

the world virgin priestesses are dedicated to a snake-god and are married

to the god.[359] At Rome, it is interesting to note, the serpent was the

symbol of fecundation, and as such often figures at Pompeii as the _genius

patrisfamilias_, the generative power of the family.[360] In Rabbinical

tradition, also, the serpent is the symbol of sexual desire.

There can be no doubt that--as Ploss and Bartels, from whom some of these

examples have been taken, point out--in widely different parts of the

world menstruation is believed to have been originally caused by a snake,

and that this conception is frequently associated with an erotic and

mystic idea.[361] How the connection arose Ploss and Bartels are unable to

say. It can only be suggested that its shape and appearance, as well as

its venomous nature, may have contributed to the mystery everywhere

associated with the snake--a mystery itself fortified by the association

with women--to build up this world-wide belief regarding the origin of

menstruation.

This primitive theory of the origin of menstruation probably brings before

us in its earliest shape the special and intimate bond which has ever been

held to connect women, by virtue of the menstrual process, with the

natural or supernatural powers of the world. Everywhere menstruating women

are supposed to be possessed by spirits and charged with mysterious

forces. It is at this point that a serious misconception, due to ignorance

of primitive religious ideas, has constantly intruded. It is stated that

the menstruating woman is "unclean" and possessed by an evil spirit. As a

matter of fact, however, the savage rarely discriminates between bad and

good spirits. Every spirit may have either a beneficial or malignant

influence. An interesting instance of this is given in Colenso's _Maori

Lexicon_ as illustrated by the meaning of the Maori word _atua_.

The importance of recognizing the special sense in which the word

"unclean" is used in this connection was clearly pointed out by Robertson

Smith in the case of the Semites. "The Hebrew word _tame_ (unclean)," he

remarked, "is not the ordinary word for things physically foul; it is a

ritual term, and corresponds exactly to the idea of _taboo_. The ideas

'unclean' and 'holy' seem to us to stand in polar opposition to one

another, but it was not so with the Semites. Among the later Jews the Holy

Books 'defiled the hands' of the reader as contact with an impure thing

did; among Lucian's Syrians the dove was so holy that he who touched it

was unclean for a day; and the _taboo_ attaching to the swine was

explained by some, and beyond question correctly explained, in the same

way. Among the heathen Semites,[362] therefore, unclean animals, which it

was pollution to eat, were simply holy animals." Robertson Smith here

made no reference to menstruation, but he exactly described the primitive

attitude toward menstruation. Wellhausen, however, dealing with the early

Arabians, expressly mentions that in pre-Islamic days, "clean" and

"unclean" were used solely with reference to women in and out of the

menstrual state. At a later date Frazer developed this aspect of the

conception of taboo, and showed how it occurs among savage races

generally. He pointed out that the conceptions of holiness and pollution

not having yet been differentiated, women at childbirth and during

menstruation are on the same level as divine kings, chiefs, and priests,

and must observe the same rules of ceremonial purity. To seclude such

persons from the rest of the world, so that the dreaded spiritual danger

shall not spread, is the object of the taboo, which Frazer compares to "an

electrical insulator to preserve the spiritual force with which these

persons are charged from suffering or inflicting, harm by contact with the

outer world." After describing the phenomena (especially the prohibition

to touch the ground or see the sun) found among various races, Frazer

concludes: "The object of secluding women at menstruation is to neutralize

the dangerous influences which are supposed to emanate from them at such

times. The general effect of these rules is to keep the girl suspended, so

to say, between heaven and earth. Whether enveloped in her hammock and

slung up to the roof, as in South America, or elevated above the ground in

a dark and narrow cage, as in New Zealand, she may be considered to be out

of the way of doing mischief, since, being shut off both from the earth

and from the sun, she can poison neither of these great sources of life by

her deadly contagion. The precautions thus taken to isolate or insulate

the girl are dictated by regard for her own safety as well as for the

safety of others.... In short, the girl is viewed as charged with a

powerful force which, if not kept within bounds, may prove the destruction

both of the girl herself and of all with whom she comes in contact. To

repress this force within the limits necessary for the safety of all

concerned is the object of the taboos in question. The same explanation

applies to the observance of the same rules by divine kings and priests.

The uncleanliness, as it is called, of girls at puberty and the sanctity

of holy men do not, to the primitive mind, differ from each other. They

are only different manifestations of the same supernatural energy, which,

like energy in general, is in itself neither good nor bad, but becomes

beneficent or malignant according to its application."[363]

More recently this view of the matter has been further extended by the

distinguished French sociologist, Durkheim. Investigating the origins of

the prohibition of incest, and arguing that it proceeds from the custom of

exogamy (or marriage outside the clan), and that this rests on certain

ideas about blood, which, again, are traceable to totemism,--a theory

which we need not here discuss,--Durkheim is brought face to face with the

group of conceptions that now concern us. He insists on the extreme

ambiguity found in primitive culture concerning the notion of the divine,

and the close connection between aversion and veneration, and points out

that it is not only at puberty and each recurrence of the menstrual epoch

that women have aroused these emotions, but also at childbirth. "A

sentiment of religious horror," he continues, "which can reach such a

degree of intensity, which can be called forth by so many circumstances,

and reappears regularly every month to last for a week at least, cannot

fail to extend its influence beyond the periods to which it was originally

confined, and to affect the whole course of life. A being who must be

secluded or avoided for weeks, months, or years preserves something of the

characteristics to which the isolation was due, even outside those special

periods. And, in fact, in these communities, the separation of the sexes

is not merely intermittent; it has become chronic. The two elements of the

population live separately." Durkheim proceeds to argue that the origin of

the occult powers attributed to the feminine organism is to be found in

primitive ideas concerning blood. Not only menstrual blood but any kind of

blood is the object of such feelings among savage and barbarous peoples.

All sorts of precautions must be observed with regard to blood; in it

resides a divine principle, or as Romans, Jews, and Arabs believed, life

itself. The prohibition to drink wine, the blood of the grape, found among

some peoples, is traced to its resemblance to blood, and to its

sacrificial employment (as among the ancient Arabians and still in the

Christian sacrament) as a substitute for drinking blood. Throughout, blood

is generally taboo, and it taboos everything that comes in contact with

it. Now woman is chronically "the theatre of bloody manifestations," and

therefore she tends to become chronically taboo for the other members of

the community. "A more or less conscious anxiety, a certain religious

fear, cannot fail to enter into all the relations of her companions with

her, and that is why all such relations are reduced to a minimum.

Relations of a sexual character are specially excluded. In the first

place, such relations are so intimate that they are incompatible with the

sort of repulsion which the sexes must experience for each other; the

barrier between them does not permit of such a close union. In the second

place, the organs of the body here specially concerned are precisely the

source of the dreaded manifestations. Thus it is natural that the feelings

of aversion inspired by women attain their greatest intensity at this

point. Thus it is, also, that of all parts of the feminine organization it

is this region which is most severely shut out from commerce." So that,

while the primitive emotion is mainly one of veneration, and is allied to

that experienced for kings and priests, there is an element of fear in

such veneration, and what men fear is to some extent odious to them.[364]

These conceptions necessarily mingled at a very early period with men's

ideas of sexual intercourse with women and especially with menstruating

women. Contact with women, as Crawley shows by abundant illustration, is

dangerous. In any case, indeed, the same ideas being transferred to women

also, coitus produces weakness, and it prevents the acquisition of

supernatural powers. Thus, among the western tribes of Canada, Boas

states: "Only a youth who has never touched a woman, or a virgin, both

being called _te 'e 'its_, can become shamans. After having had sexual

intercourse men as well as women, become _t 'k-e 'el_, i.e., weak,

incapable of gaining supernatural powers. The faculty cannot be regained

by subsequent fasting and abstinence."[365] The mysterious effects of

sexual intercourse in general are intensified in the case of intercourse

with a menstruating woman. Thus the ancient Indian legislator declares

that "the wisdom, the energy, the strength, the sight, and the vitality of

a man who approaches a woman covered with menstrual excretions utterly

perish."[366] It will be seen that these ideas are impartially spread over

the most widely separated parts of the globe. They equally affected the

Christian Church, and the Penitentials ordained forty or fifty days

penance for sexual intercourse during menstruation.

Yet the twofold influence of the menstruating woman remains clear when we

review the whole group of influences which in this state she is supposed

to exert. She by no means acts only by paralyzing social activities and

destroying the powers of life, by causing flowers to fade, fruit to fall

from the trees, grains to lose their germinative power, and grafts to die.

She is not accurately summed up in the old lines:--

"Oh! menstruating woman, thou'rt a fiend

From whom all nature should be closely screened."

Her powers are also beneficial. A woman at this time, as Ælian expressed

it, is in regular communication with the starry bodies. Even at other

times a woman when led naked around the orchard protected it from

caterpillars, said Pliny, and this belief is acted upon (according to

Bastanzi) even in the Italy of to-day.[367] A garment stained with a

virgin's menstrual blood, it is said in Bavaria, is a certain safeguard

against cuts and stabs. It will also extinguish fire. It was valuable as a

love-philter; as a medicine its uses have been endless.[368] A sect of

Valentinians even attributed sacramental virtues to menstrual blood, and

partook of it as the blood of Christ. The Church soon, however, acquired a

horror of menstruating women; they were frequently not allowed to take the

sacrament or to enter sacred places, and it was sometimes thought best to

prohibit the presence of women altogether.[369] The Anglo-Saxon

Penitentials declared that menstruating women must not enter a church. It

appears to have been Gregory II who overturned this doctrine.

In our own time the slow disintegration of primitive animistic

conceptions, aided certainly by the degraded conception of sexual

phenomena taught by mediæval monks--for whom woman was "_templum

ædificatum super cloacam_"--has led to a disbelief in the more salutary

influences of the menstruating woman. A fairly widespread faith in her

pernicious influence alone survives. It may be traced even in practical

and commercial--one might add, medical--quarters. In the great

sugar-refineries in the North of France the regulations strictly forbid a

woman to enter the factory while the sugar is boiling or cooling, the

reason given being that, if a woman were to enter during her period, the

sugar would blacken. For the same reason--to turn to the East--no woman is

employed in the opium manufactory at Saigon, it being said that the opium

would turn and become bitter, while Annamite women say that it is very

difficult for them to prepare opium-pipes during the catamenial

period.[370] In India, again, when a native in charge of a limekiln which

had gone wrong, declared that one of the women workers must be

menstruating, all the women--Hindus, Mahometans, aboriginal Gonds,

etc.,--showed by their energetic denials that they understood this

superstition.[371]

In 1878 a member of the British Medical Association wrote to the _British

Medical Journal_, asking whether it was true that if a woman cured hams

while menstruating the hams would be spoiled. He had known this to happen

twice. Another medical man wrote that if so, what would happen to the

patients of menstruating lady doctors? A third wrote (in the _Journal_ for

April 27, 1878): "I thought the fact was so generally known to every

housewife and cook that meat would spoil if salted at the menstrual

period, that I am surprised to see so many letters on the subject in the

_Journal_. If I am not mistaken, the question was mooted many years ago in

the periodicals. It is undoubtedly the fact that meat will be tainted if

cured by women at the catamenial period. Whatever the rationale may be, I

can speak positively as to the fact."

It is probably the influence of these primitive ideas which has caused

surgeons and gynæcologists to dread operations during the catamenial

period. Such, at all events, is the opinion of a distinguished authority,

Dr. William Goodell, who wrote in 1891[372]: "I have learned to unlearn

the teaching that women must not be subjected to a surgical operation

during the monthly flux. Our forefathers, from time immemorial, have

thought and taught that the presence of a menstruating woman would pollute

solemn religious rites, would sour milk, spoil the fermentation in

wine-vats, and much other mischief in a general way. Influenced by hoary

tradition, modern physicians very generally postpone all operative

treatment until the flow has ceased. But why this delay, if time is

precious, and it enters as an important factor in the case? I have found

menstruation to be the very best time to curette away fungous vegetations

of the endometrium, for, being swollen then by the afflux of blood, they

are larger than at any other time, and can the more readily be removed.

There is, indeed, no surer way of checking or of stopping a metrorrhagia

than by curetting the womb during the very flow. While I do not select

this period for the removal of ovarian cysts, or for other abdominal work,

such as the extirpation of the ovaries, or a kidney, or breaking up

intestinal adhesions, etc., yet I have not hesitated to perform these

operations at such a time, and have never had reason to regret the course.

The only operations that I should dislike to perform during menstruation

would be those involving the womb itself."

It must be added to this that we still have to take into consideration not

merely the surviving influence of ancient primitive beliefs, but the

possible existence of actual nervous conditions during the menstrual

period, producing what may be described as an abnormal nervous tension. In

this way, we are doubtless concerned with a tissue of phenomena,

inextricably woven of folk-lore, autosuggestion, false observation, and

real mental and nervous abnormality. Laurent (loc. cit.) has brought

forward several cases which may illustrate this point. Thus, he speaks of

two young girls of about 16 and 17, slightly neuropathic, but without

definite hysterical symptoms, who, during the menstrual period, feel

themselves in a sort of electrical state, "with tingling and prickling

sensations and feelings of attraction or repulsion at the contact of

various objects." These girls believe their garments stick to their skin

during the periods; it was only with difficulty that they could remove

their slippers, though fitting easily; stockings had to be drawn off

violently by another person, and they had given up changing their chemises

during the period because the linen became so glued to the skin. An

orchestral performer on the double-bass informed Laurent that whenever he

left a tuned double-bass in his lodgings during his wife's period a

string snapped; consequently he always removed his instrument at this time

to a friend's house. He added that the same thing happened two years

earlier with a mistress, a _café-concert_ singer, who had, indeed, warned

him beforehand. A harpist also informed Laurent that she had been obliged

to give up her profession because during her periods several strings of

her harp, always the same strings, broke, especially when she was playing.

A friend of Laurent's, an official in Cochin China, also told him that the

strings of his violin often snapped during the menstrual periods of his

Annamite mistress, who informed him that Annamite women are familiar with

the phenomenon, and are careful not to play on their instruments at this

time. Two young ladies, both good violinists, also affirmed that ever

since their first menstruation they had noted a tendency for the strings

to snap at this period; one, a genuine artist, who often performed at

charity concerts, systematically refused to play at these times, and was

often embarrassed to find a pretext; the other, who admitted that she was

nervous and irritable at such times, had given up playing on account of

the trouble of changing the strings so frequently. Laurent also refers to

the frequency with which women break things during the menstrual periods,

and considers that this is not simply due to the awkwardness caused by

nervous exhaustion or hysterical tremors, but that there is spontaneous

breakage. Most usually it happens that a glass breaks when it is being

dried with a cloth; needles also break with unusual facility at this time;

clocks are stopped by merely placing the hand upon them.

I do not here attempt to estimate critically the validity of these alleged

manifestations (some of which may certainly be explained by the

unconscious muscular action which forms the basis of the phenomena of

table-turning and thought-reading); such a task may best be undertaken

through the minute study of isolated cases, and in this place I am merely

concerned with the general influence of the menstrual state in affecting

the social position of women, without reference to the analysis of the

elements that go to make up that influence.

There is only one further point to which attention may be called. I

allude to the way in which the more favorable side of the primitive

conception of the menstruating woman--as priestess, sibyl, prophetess, an

almost miraculous agent for good, an angel, the peculiar home of the

divine element--was slowly and continuously carried on side by side with

the less favorable view, through the beginnings of European civilization

until our own times. The actual physical phenomena of menstruation, with

the ideas of taboo associated with that state, sank into the background as

culture evolved; but, on the other hand, the ideas of the angelic position

and spiritual mission of women, based on the primitive conception of the

mystery associated with menstruation, still in some degree persisted.

It is evident, however, that, while, in one form or another, the more

favorable aspect of the primitive view of women's magic function has never

quite died out, the gradual decay and degradation of the primitive view

has, on the whole, involved a lower estimate of women's nature and

position. Woman has always been the witch; she was so even in ancient

Babylonia; but she has ceased to be the priestess. The early Teutons saw

"_sanctum aliquid et providum_" in women who, for the mediæval German

preacher, were only "_bestiæ bipedales_"; and Schopenhauer and even

Nietzsche have been more inclined to side with the preacher than with the

half-naked philosophers of Tacitus's day. But both views alike are but the

extremes of the same primitive conception; and the gradual evolution from

one extreme of the magical doctrine to the other was inevitable.

In an advanced civilization, as we see, these ideas having their ultimate

basis on the old story of the serpent, and on a special and mysterious

connection between the menstruating woman and the occult forces of magic,

tend to die out. The separation of the sexes they involve becomes

unnecessary. Living in greater community with men, women are seen to

possess something, it may well be, but less than before, of the

angel-devil of early theories. Menstruation is no longer a monstrific

state requiring spiritual taboo, but a normal physiological process, not

without its psychic influences on the woman herself and on those who live

with her.

FOOTNOTES:

[353] Several recent works, however, notably Frazer's _Golden Bough_ and

Crawley's _Mystic Rose_, throw light directly or indirectly on this

question.

[354] Robertson Smith points out that since snakes are the last noxious

animals which man is able to exterminate, they are the last to be

associated with demons. They were ultimately the only animals directly and

constantly associated with the Arabian _jinn_, or demon, and the serpent

of Eden was a demon, and not a temporary disguise of Satan (_Religion of

Semites_, pp. 129 and 442). Perhaps it was, in part, because the snake was

thus the last embodiment of demonic power that women were associated with

it, women being always connected with the most ancient religious beliefs.

[355] In the northern territory of the same colony menstruation is said to

be due to a bandicoot scratching the vagina and causing blood to flow

(_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, p. 177, November, 1894). At

Glenelg, and near Portland, in Victoria, the head of a snake was inserted

into a virgin's vagina, when not considered large enough for intercourse

(Brough Smyth, _Aborigines of Victoria_, vol. ii, p. 319).

[356] Frazer, _Golden Bough_, vol. ii, p. 231. Crawley (_The Mystic Rose_,

p. 192) also brings together various cases of primitive peoples who

believe the bite of a snake to be the cause of menstruation.

[357] Meyners d'Estrez, "Etude ethnographique sur le lézard chez les

peuples malais et polynésiens," _L'Anthropologie_, 1892; see also, as

regards the lizard in Samoan folk-lore, _Globus_, vol. lxxiv, No. 16.

[358] _Journal Anthropological Society of Bombay_, 1890, p. 589.

[359] Boudin (_Etude Anthropologique: Culte du Serpent_, Paris, 1864, pp.

66-70) brings forward examples of this aspect of snake-worship.

[360] Attilio de Marchi, _Il Culto privato di Roma_, p. 74. The

association of the power of generation with a god in the form of a serpent

is, indeed, common; see, e.g. Sir W.M. Ramsay, _Cities of Phrygia_, vol.

i, p. 94.

[361] It is noteworthy that one of the names for the penis used by the

Swahili women of German East Africa, in a kind of private language of

their own, is "the snake" (Zache, _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, p. 73,

1899). It may be added that Maeder ("Interprétation de Quelques Rêves,"

_Archives de Psychologie_, April, 1907) brings forward various items of

folk-lore showing the phallic significance of the serpent, as well as

evidence indicating that, in the dreams of women of to-day, the snake

sometimes has a sexual significance.

[362] W.R. Smith, _Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia_, 1885, p. 307.

The point is elaborated in the same author's _Religion of Semites_, second

edition, Appendix on "Holiness, Uncleanness, and Taboo," pp. 446-54. See

also Wellhausen, _Reste Arabischen Heidentums_, second edition, pp.

167-77. Even to the early Arabians, Wellhausen remarks (p. 168), "clean"

meant "profane and allowed," while "unclean" meant "sacred and forbidden."

It was the same, as Jastrow remarks (_Religion of Babylonia_, p. 662),

among the Babylonian Semites.

[363] J.C. Frazer, _The Golden Bough_, Chapter IV.

[364] E. Durkheim, "La Prohibition de l'Inceste et ses Origines," _L'Année

Sociologique_, Première Année, 1898, esp. pp. 44, 46-47, 48, 50-57.

Crawley (_Mystic Rose_, p. 212) opposes Durkheim's view as to the

significance of blood in relation to the attitude towards women.

[365] _British Association Report on North Western Tribes of Canada_,

1890, p. 581.

[366] _Laws of Manu_, iv, 41.

[367] Pliny, who, in Book VII, Chapter XIII, and Book XXVIII, Chapter

XXIII, of his _Natural History_, gives long lists of the various good and

evil influences attributed to menstruation, writes in the latter place:

"Hailstorms, they say, whirlwinds, and lightnings, even, will be scared

away by a woman uncovering her body while her monthly courses are upon

her. The same, too, with all other kinds of tempestuous weather; and out

at sea, a storm may be stilled by a woman uncovering her body merely, even

though not menstruating at the time. At any other time, also, if a woman

strips herself naked while she is menstruating, and walks round a field of

wheat, the caterpillars, worms, beetles, and other vermin will fall from

off the ears of corn."

[368] See Bourke, _Scatologic Rites of all Nations_, 1891, pp. 217-219,

250 and 254; Ploss and Max Bartels, _Das Weib_, vol. i; H.L. Strack, _Der

Blutaberglaube in der Menschheit_, fourth edition, 1892, pp. 14-18. The

last mentioned refers to the efficacy frequently attributed to menstrual

blood in the Middle Ages in curing leprosy, and gives instances, occurring

even in Germany to-day, of girls who have administered drops of menstrual

blood in coffee to their sweethearts, to make sure of retaining their

affections.

[369] See, e.g., Dufour, _Histoire de la Prostitution_, vol. iii, p. 115.

[370] Dr. L. Laurent gives these instances, "De Quelques Phenomènes

Mécaniques produits au moment de la Menstruation," _Annales des Sciences

Psychiques_, September and October, 1897.

[371] _Journal Anthropological Society of Bombay_, 1890, p. 403. Even the

glance of a menstruating woman is widely believed to have serious results.

See Tuchmann, "La Fascination," _Mélasine_, 1888, pp. 347 _et seq._

[372] As quoted in the _Provincial Medical Journal_, April, 1891.

APPENDIX B.

SEXUAL PERIODICITY IN MEN.

BY F.H. PERRY-COSTE, B. Sc. (LOND.).

In a recent _brochure_ on the "Rhythm of the Pulse"[373] I showed _inter

alia_ that the readings of the pulse, in both man and woman, if arranged

in lunar monthly periods, and averaged over several years, displayed a

clear, and sometimes very strongly marked and symmetrical, rhythm.[374]

After pointing out that, in at any rate some cases, the male and female

pulse-curves, both monthly and annual, seemed to be converse to one

another, I added: "It is difficult to ignore the suggestion that in this

tracing of the monthly rhythm of the pulse we have a history of the

monthly function in women; and that, if so, the tracing of the male pulse

may eventually afford us some help in discovering a corresponding monthly

period in men: the existence of which has been suggested by Mr. Havelock

Ellis and Professor Stanley Hall, among other writers. Certainly the mere

fact that we can trace a clear monthly rhythm in man's pulse seems to

point strongly to the existence of a monthly physiological period in him

also."

Obviously, however, it is only indirectly and by inference that we can

argue from a monthly rhythm of the pulse in men to a male sexual

periodicity; but I am now able to adduce more direct evidence that will

fairly demonstrate the existence of a sexual periodicity in men.

We will start from the fact that celibacy is profoundly unnatural,

and is, therefore, a physical--as well as an emotional and

intellectual--abnormality. This being so, it is entirety in accord with

all that we know of physiology that, when relief to the sexual secretory

system by Nature's means is denied, and when, in consequence, a certain

degree of tension or pressure has been attained, the system should relieve

itself by a spontaneous discharge--such discharge being, of course, in the

strict sense of the term, pathological, since it would never occur in any

animal that followed the strict law of its physical being without any

regard to other and higher laws of concern for its fellows.

Notoriously, that which we should have anticipated _a priori_ actually

occurs; for any unmarried man, who lives in strict chastity, periodically

experiences, while sleeping, a loss of seminal fluid--such phenomena being

popularly referred to as _wet dreams_.[375]

During some eight or ten years I have carefully recorded the occurrence of

such discharges as I have experienced myself, and I have now accumulated

sufficient data to justify an attempt to formulate some provisional

conclusions.[376]

In order to render these observations as serviceable as may be to students

of periodicity, I here repeat (at the request of Mr. Havelock Ellis) the

statement which was subjoined, for the same reasons, to my "Rhythm of the

Pulse." These observations upon myself were made between the ages of 20

and 33. I am about 5 feet, 9 inches tall, broad-shouldered, and weigh

about 10 stone 3 lbs. _net_--this weight being, I believe, about 7 lbs.

below the normal for my height. Also I have green-brown eyes, very

dark-brown hair, and a complexion that leads strangers frequently to

mistake me for a foreigner--this complexion being, perhaps, attributable

to some Huguenot blood, although on the maternal side I am, so far as all

information goes, pure English. I can stand a good deal of heat, enjoy

relaxing climates, am at once upset by "bracing" sea-air, hate the cold,

and sweat profusely after exercise. To this it will suffice to add that my

temperament is of a decidedly nervous and emotional type.

Before proceeding to remark upon the various rhythms that I have

discovered, I will tabulate the data on which my conclusions are founded.

The numbers of discharges recorded in the years in question are as

follows:--

In 1886, 30. (Records commenced in April.)

In 1887, 40.

In 1888, 37.

In 1889, 18. (Pretty certainly not fully recorded.)

In 1890, 0 (No records kept this year.[377])

In 1891, 19. (Records recommenced in June.)

In 1892, 35.

In 1893, 40.

In 1894, 38.

In 1895, 36.

In 1896, 36.

In 1897, 35.

Average, 37. (Omitting 1886, 1889, and 1891.)

Thus I have complete records for eight years, and incomplete records for

three more; and the remarkable concord between the respective annual

numbers of observations in these eight years not only affords us intrinsic

evidence of the accuracy of my records, but, also, at once proves that

there is an undeniable regularity in the occurrence of these sexual

discharges, and, therefore, gives us reason for expecting to find this

regularity rhythmical. Moreover, since it seemed reasonable to expect

that there might be more than one rhythm, I have examined my data with a

view to discovering (1) an annual, (2) a lunar-monthly, and (3) a weekly

rhythm, and I now proceed to show that all three such rhythms exist.

THE ANNUAL RHYTHM.

It is obvious that, in searching for an annual rhythm, we must ignore the

records of the three incomplete years; but those of the remaining eight

are graphically depicted upon Chart 8. The curves speak so plainly for

themselves that any comment were almost superfluous, and the concord

between the various curves, although, of course, not perfect, is far

greater than the scantiness of the data would have justified us in

expecting. The curves all agree in pointing to the existence of three

well-defined maxima,--viz., in March, June, and September,--these being,

therefore, the months in which the sexual instinct is most active; and the

later curves show that there is also often a fourth maximum in January. In

the earlier years the March and June maxima are more strikingly marked

than the September one; but the uppermost curve shows that on the average

of all eight years the September maximum is the highest, the June and

January maxima occupying the second place, and the March maximum being the

least strongly marked of all.

Now, remembering that, in calculating the curves of the annual rhythm of

the pulse, I had found it necessary to average two months' records

together, in order to bring out the full significance of the rhythm, I

thought it well to try the effect upon these curves also of similarly

averaging two months together. 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. How often, in this climate, should a man have sexual

connection with his wife in order to maintain himself in perfect

physiological equilibrium? My results enable us to state definitely the

minimum limits, and to reply that 37 embraces annually would be too few;

but, unfortunately, they give us no clue to the maximum limit. It is

obvious that the necessary frequency should be greater than 37 times

annually,--possibly very considerably in excess thereof,--seeing that the

spontaneous discharges, with which we are dealing, are due to

over-pressure, and occur only when the system, being denied natural

relief, can no longer retain its secretions; and, therefore, it seems very

reasonable to suggest that the frequency of natural relief should be some

multiple of 37. I do not perceive, however, that the data in hand afford

us any clue to this multiple, or enable us to suggest either 2, 3, 4, or 5

as the required multiple of 37. It is true that other observations upon

myself have afforded me what I believe to be a fairly satisfactory and

reliable answer so far as concerns myself; but these observations are of

such a nature that they cannot be discussed here, and I have no

inclination to offer as a counsel to others an opinion which I am unable

to justify by the citation of facts and statistics. Moreover, I am quite

unable to opine whether, given 37 as the annual frequency of spontaneous

discharges in a number of men, the multiple required for the frequency of

natural relief should be the same in every case. For aught I know to the

contrary, the physiological idiosyncrasies of men may be so varied that,

given two men with an annual frequency of 37 spontaneous discharges, the

desired multiple may be in one case X and in the other 2X.[378] Our data,

however, do clearly denote that the frequency in the six or eight summer

months should bear to the frequency of the six or four winter months the

proportion of three or four to two.[379] It should never be forgotten,

however, that, under all conditions, both man and wife should exercise

prudence, both _selfward_ and _otherward_, and that each should utterly

refuse to gratify self by accepting a sacrifice, however willingly

offered, that may be gravely prejudicial to the health of the other; for

only experience can show whether, in any union, the receptivity of the

woman be greater or less than, or equal to, the _physical_ desire of the

man. To those, of course, who regard marriage from the old-fashioned and

grossly immoral standpoint of Melancthon and other theologians, and who

consider a wife as the divinely ordained vehicle for the chartered

intemperance of her husband, it will seem grotesque in the highest degree

that a physiological inquirer should attempt to advise them how often to

seek the embraces of their wives; but those who regard woman from the

standpoint of a higher ethics, who abhor the notion that she should be

only the vehicle for her husband's passions, and who demand that she shall

be mistress of her own body, will not be ungrateful for any guidance that

physiology can afford them. It will be seen presently, moreover, that the

study of the weekly rhythm does afford us some less inexact clue to the

desired solution.

One curious fact may be mentioned before we quit this interesting

question. It is stated that "Solon required [of the husband] three

_payments_ per month. By the Misna a daily debt was imposed upon an idle

vigorous young husband; _twice a week_ on a citizen; once in thirty days

on a camel-driver; once in six months on a seaman."[380] Now it is

certainly striking that Solon's "three payments per month" exactly

correspond with my records of 37 discharges annually. Had Solon similarly

recorded a series of observations upon himself?

THE LUNAR-MONTHLY RHYTHM.

We now come to that division of the inquiry which is of the greatest

physiological interest, although of little social import. Is there a

monthly period in man as well as in woman? My records indicate clearly

that there is.

In searching for this monthly rhythm I have utilized not only the data of

the eight completely-recorded years, but also those of the three years of

1886, 1889, and 1891, for, although it would obviously have been

inaccurate to utilize these incomplete records when calculating the

yearly rhythm, there seems no objection to making use of them in the

present section of the inquiry. It is hardly necessary to remark that the

terms "first day of the month," "second day," "third day," etc., are to be

understood as denoting "new-moon day," "day after new moon," "third lunar

day," and so on; but it should be explained that, since these discharges

occur at night, I have adopted the astronomical, instead of the civil,

day; so that a new moon occurring between noon yesterday and noon to-day

is reckoned as occurring yesterday, and yesterday is regarded as the first

lunar day: thus, a discharge occurring in the night between December 31st

and January 1st is tabulated as occurring on December 31st, and, in the

present discussion, is assigned to the lunar day comprised between noon of

December 31st and noon of January 1st.

Since it is obvious that the number of discharges in any one

year--averaging, as they do, only 1.25 per day--are far too few to yield a

curve of any value, I have combined my data in two series. The dotted

curve on Chart 9 is obtained by combining the results of the years

1886-92: two of these years are incompletely recorded, and there are no

records for 1890; the total number of observations was 179. The broken

curve is obtained by combining those of the years 1893-97, the total

number of observations being 185. Even so, the data are far too scanty to

yield a really characteristic curve; but the _continuous_ curve, which

sums up the results of the eleven years, is more reliable, and obviously

more satisfactory.

If the two former curves be compared, it will be seen that, on the whole,

they display a general concordance, such differences as exist being

attributable chiefly to two facts: (1) that the second curve is more even

throughout, neither maximum nor minimum being so strongly marked as in the

first; and (2) that the main maximum occurs in the middle of the month

instead of on the second lunar day, and the absence of the marked initial

maximum alters the character of the first week or so of this curve. It is,

however, scarcely fair to lay any great stress on the characters of curves

obtained from such scanty data, and we will, therefore, pass to the

continuous curve, the study of which will prove more valuable.[381]

Now, even a cursory examination of this continuous curve will yield the

following results:--

1. The discharges occur most frequently on the second lunar day.

2. The days of the next most frequent discharges are the 22d; the 13th;

the 7th, 20th, and 26th; the 11th and 16th; so that, if we regard only the

first six of these, we find that the discharges occur most frequently on

the 2d, 7th, 13th, 20th, 22d, and 26th lunar days--i.e., the discharges

occur most frequently on days separated, on the average, by four-day

intervals; but actually the period between the 20th and 22d days is that

characterized by the most frequent discharges.

3. The days of minimum of discharge are the 1st, 5th, 15th, 18th, and

21st.

4. The curve is characterized by a continual see-sawing; so that every

notable maximum is immediately followed by a notable minimum. Thus, the

curve is of an entirely different character from that representing the

monthly rhythm of the pulse,[382] and this is only what one might have

expected; for, whereas the _mean_ pulsations vary only very slightly from

day to day,--thus giving rise to a gradually rising or sinking curve,--a

discharge from the sexual system relieves the tension by exhausting the

stored-up secretion, and is necessarily followed by some days of rest and

inactivity. In the very nature of the case, therefore, a curve of this

kind could not possibly be otherwise than most irregular if the discharges

tended to occur most frequently upon definite days of the month; and thus

the very irregularity of the curve affords us proof that there is a

regular male periodicity, such that on certain days of the month there is

greater probability of a spontaneous discharge than on any other days.

5. Gratifying, however, though this irregularity of the curve may be, yet

it entails a corresponding disadvantage, for we are precluded thereby from

readily perceiving the characteristics of the monthly rhythm as a whole. I

thought that perhaps this aspect of the rhythm might be rendered plainer

if I calculated the data into two-day averages; and the result, as shown

in Chart 10, is extremely satisfactory. Here we can at once perceive the

wonderful and almost geometric symmetry of the monthly rhythm; indeed, if

the third maximum were one unit higher, if the first minimum were one unit

lower, and if the lines joining the second minimum and third maximum, and

the fourth maximum and fourth minimum, were straight instead of being

slightly broken, then the curve would, in its chief features, be

geometrically symmetrical; and this symmetry appears to me to afford a

convincing proof of the representative accuracy of the curve. We see that

the month is divided into five periods; that the maxima occur on the

following pairs of days: the 19th-20th, 13th-14th, 25th-26th, 1st-2d,

7th-8th; and that the minima occur at the beginning, end, and exact middle

of the month. There have been many idle superstitions as to the influence

of the moon upon the earth and its inhabitants, and some beliefs

that--once deemed equally idle--have now been re-instated in the regard of

science; but it would certainly seem to be a very fascinating and very

curious fact if the influence of the moon upon men should be such as to

regulate the spontaneous discharges of their sexual system. Certainly the

lovers of all ages would then have "builded better than they knew," when

they reared altars of devotional verse to that chaste goddess Artemis.

THE WEEKLY RHYTHM.

We now come to the third branch of our inquiry, and have to ask whether

there be any weekly rhythm of the sexual activity. _A priori_ it might be

answered that to expect any such weekly rhythm were absurd, seeing that

our week--unlike the lunar month of the year--is a purely artificial and

conventional period; while, on the other hand, it might be retorted that

the existence of an _induced_ weekly periodicity is quite conceivable,

such periodicity being induced by the habitual difference between our

occupation, or mode of life, on one or two days of the week and that on

the remaining days. In such an inquiry, however, _a priori_ argument is

futile, as the question can be answered only by an induction from

observations, and the curves on Chart 11 (_A_ and _B_) prove conclusively

that there is a notable weekly rhythm. The existence of this weekly rhythm

being granted, it would naturally be assumed that either the maximum or

the minimum would regularly occur on Saturday or Sunday; but an

examination of the curves discloses the unexpected result that the day of

maximum discharge varies from year to year. Thus it is[383]

Sunday in 1888, 1892, 1896.

Tuesday in 1894.

Thursday in 1886, 1897.

Friday in 1887.

Saturday in 1893 and 1895.

Since, in Chart 11, the curves are drawn from Sunday to Sunday, it is

obvious that the real symmetry of the curve is brought out in those years

only which are characterized by a Sunday maximum; and, accordingly, in

Chart 12 I have depicted the curves in a more suitable form.

Chart 12 _A_ is obtained by combining the data of 1888, 1892, and 1896:

the years of a Sunday maximum. Curve 12 _B_ represents the results of

1894, the year of a Tuesday maximum--multiplied throughout by three in

order to render the curve strictly comparable with the former. Curve 12

_C_ represents 1886 and 1897--the years of a Thursday maximum--similarly

multiplied by 1.5. In Curve 12 _D_ we have the results of 1887--the year

of a Friday maximum--again multiplied by three; and in Curve 12 _E_ those

of 1893 and 1895--the years of a Saturday maximum--multiplied by 1.5.

Finally, Curve 12 _F_ represents the combined results of all nine years

plus (the latter half of) 1891; and this curve shows that, on the whole

period, there is a very strongly marked Sunday maximum.

I hardly think that these curves call for much comment. In their general

character they display a notable concord among themselves; and it is

significant that the most regular of the five curves are _A_ and _E_,

representing the combinations of three years and of two years,

respectively, while the least regular is _B_, which is based upon the

records of one year only. In every case we find that the maximum which

opens the week is rapidly succeeded by a minimum, which is itself

succeeded by a secondary maximum,--usually very secondary, although in

1894 it nearly equals the primary maximum,--followed again by a second

minimum--usually nearly identical with the first minimum,--after which

there is a rapid rise to the original maximum. The study of these curves

fortunately amplifies the conclusion drawn from our study of the annual

rhythm, and suggests that, in at least part of the year, the physiological

condition of man requires sexual union at least twice a week.

As to Curve 12_F_, its remarkable symmetry speaks for itself. The

existence of two secondary maxima, however, has not the same significance

as had that of our secondary maximum in the preceding curves; for one of

these secondary maxima is due to the influence of the 1894 curve with its

primary Tuesday maximum, and the other to the similar influence of Curve

_C_ with its primary Thursday maximum. Similarly, the veiled third

secondary maximum is due to the influence of Curve _E_. Probably, any

student of curves will concede that, on a still larger average, the two

secondary maxima of Curve _F_ would be replaced by a single one on

Wednesday or Thursday.

One more question remains for consideration in connection with this weekly

rhythm. Is it possible to trace any connection between the weekly and

yearly rhythms of such a character that the weekly day of maximum

discharge should vary from month to month in the year; in other words,

does the greater frequency of a Sunday discharge characterize one part of

the year, that of a Tuesday another, and so on? In order to answer this

question I have re-calculated all my data, with results that are

graphically represented in Chart 13. These curves prove that the Sunday

maxima discharges occur in March and September, and the minima in June;

that the Monday maxima discharges occur in September, Friday in July, and

so on. Thus, there is a regular rhythm, according to which the days of

maximum discharge vary from one month of the year to another; and the

existence of this final rhythm appears to me very remarkable. I would

especially direct attention to the almost geometric symmetry of the Sunday

curve, and to the only less complete symmetry of the Thursday and Friday

curves. Certainly in these rhythms we have an ample field for farther

study and speculation.

I have now concluded my study of this fascinating inquiry; a study that is

necessarily incomplete, since it is based upon records furnished by one

individual only. The fact, however, that, even with so few observations,

and notwithstanding the consequently exaggerated disturbing influence of

minor irregularities, such remarkable and unexpected symmetry is evidenced

by these curves, only increases one's desire to have the opportunity of

handling a series of observations sufficiently numerous to render the

generalizations induced from them absolutely conclusive. I would again

appeal[384] to heads of colleges to assist this inquiry by enlisting in

its aid a band of students. If only one hundred students, living under

similar conditions, could be induced to keep such records with scrupulous

regularity for only twelve months, the results induced from such a series

of observations would be more than ten times as valuable as those which

have only been reached after ten years' observations on my part; and, if

other centuries of students in foreign and colonial colleges--e.g., in

Italy, India, Australia, and America--could be similarly enlisted in this

work, we should quickly obtain a series of results exhibiting the sexual

needs and sexual peculiarities of the male human animal in various

climates. Obviously, however, the records of any such students would be

worse than useless unless their care and accuracy, on the one hand, and

their habitual chastity, on the other, could be implicitly guaranteed.

FOOTNOTES:

[373] First published in the _University Magazine and Free Review_ of

February, 1898, and since reprinted as a pamphlet. A preliminary

communication appeared in _Nature_, May 14, 1891.

[374] [Later study (1906) has convinced me that my attempt to find a

lunar-monthly period in the female pulse was vitiated by a hopeless error:

for any monthly rhythm in a woman must be sought by arranging her records

according to her own menstrual month; and this menstrual month may vary in

different women, from considerably less than a lunar month to thirty days

or more.]

[375] I may add, however, that in my own case these discharges are--so far

as I can trust my waking consciousness--frequently, if not usually,

dreamless; and that strictly sexual dreams are extremely rare,

notwithstanding the possession of a strongly emotional temperament.

[376] If I can trust my memory, I first experienced this discharge when a

few months under fifteen years of age, and, if so, within a few weeks of

the time when I was, in an instant, suddenly struck with the thought that

possibly the religion in which I had been educated might be false. It is

curiously interesting that the advent of puberty should have been heralded

by this intellectual crisis.

[377] This unfortunate breach in the records was due to the fact that,

failing to discover any regularity in, or law of, the occurrences of the

discharges, I became discouraged and abandoned my records. In June, 1891,

a re-examination of my pulse-records having led to my discovery of a

lunar-monthly rhythm of the pulse, my interest in other physiological

periodicities was reawakened, and I recommenced my records of these

discharges.

[378] As a matter of fact, I take it that we may safely assert that no man

who is content to be guided by his own instinctive cravings, and who

neither suppresses these, on the one hand, nor endeavors to force himself,

on the other hand, will be in any danger of erring by either excess or the

contrary.

[379] [It is obvious that the opportunity of continuing such an inquiry as

that described in this Appendix, ceases with marriage; but I may add

(1906) that certain notes that I have kept with scrupulous exactness

during eight years of married life, lend almost no support to the

suggestion made in the text--i.e., that sexual desire is greater at one

season of the year than at another. The nature of these notes I cannot

discuss; but, they clearly indicate that, although there is a slight

degree more of sexual desire in the second and third quarters of the year,

than in the first and fourth, yet, this difference is so slight as to be

almost negligible. Even if the months be rearranged in the

triplets--November-December-January, etc.,--so as to bring the maximum

months of May, June, and July together, the difference between the highest

quarter and the lowest amounts to an increase of only ten per cent, upon

the latter--after allowing, of course, for the abnormal shortness of

February; and, neglecting February, the increase in the maximum months

(June and July) over the minimum (November) is equal to an increase of

under 14 per cent, upon the latter. These differences are so vastly less

than those shown on Chart 7 that they possess almost no significance: but,

lest too much stress be laid upon the apparently _equalizing_ influence of

married life, it must be added that the records discussed in the text were

obtained during residence in London, whereas, since my marriage, I have

lived in South Cornwall, where the climate is both milder and more

equable.]

[380] Selden's _Uxor Hebraica_ as quoted in Gibbon's _Decline and Fall_,

vol. v, p. 52, of Bonn's edition.

[381] I may add that the curve yielded by 1896-97 is remarkably parallel

with that yielded by the preceding nine years, but I have not thought it

worth while to chart these two additional curves.

[382] See "Rhythm of the Pulse," Chart 4.

[383] As will be observed, I have omitted the results of the incompletely

recorded years of 1889 and 1891. The apparent explanation of this curious

oscillation will be given directly.

[384] See "Rhythm of the Pulse," p. 21.

APPENDIX C.

THE AUTO-EROTIC FACTOR IN RELIGION.

The intimate association between the emotions of love and religion is well

known to all those who are habitually brought into close contact with the

phenomena of the religious life. Love and religion are the two most

volcanic emotions to which the human organism is liable, and it is not

surprising that, when there is a disturbance in one of these spheres, the

vibrations should readily extend to the other. Nor is it surprising that

the two emotions should have a dynamic relation to each other, and that

the auto-erotic impulse, being the more primitive and fundamental of the

two impulses, should be able to pass its unexpended energy over to the

religious emotion, there to find the expansion hitherto denied it, the

love of the human becoming the love of the divine.

"I was not good enough for man,

And so am given to God."

Even when there is absolute physical suppression on the sexual side, it

seems probable that thereby a greater intensity of spiritual fervor is

caused. Many eminent thinkers seem to have been without sexual desire.

It is a noteworthy and significant fact that the age of love is also the

age of conversion. Starbuck, for instance, in his very elaborate study of

the psychology of conversion shows that the majority of conversions take

place during the period of adolescence; that is, from the age of puberty

to about 24 or 25.[385]

It would be easy to bring forward a long series of observations, from the

most various points of view, to show the wide recognition of this close

affinity between the sexual and the religious emotions. It is probable, as

Hahn points out, that the connection between sexual suppression and

religious rites, which we may trace at the very beginning of culture, was

due to an instinctive impulse to heighten rather than abolish the sexual

element. Early religious rites were largely sexual and orgiastic because

they were largely an appeal to the generative forces of Nature to exhibit

a beneficial productiveness. Among happily married people, as Hahn

remarks, the sexual emotions rapidly give place to the cares and anxieties

involved in supporting children; but when the exercise of the sexual

function is prevented by celibacy, or even by castration, the most

complete form of celibacy, the sexual emotions may pass into the psychical

sphere to take on a more pronounced shape.[386] The early Christians

adopted the traditional Eastern association between religion and celibacy,

and, as the writings of the Fathers amply show, they expended on sexual

matters a concentrated fervor of thought rarely known to the Greek and

Roman writers of the best period.[387] As Christian theology developed,

the minute inquisition into sexual things sometimes became almost an

obsession. So far as I am aware, however (I cannot profess to have made

any special investigation), it was not until the late Middle Ages that

there is any clear recognition of the fact that, between the religious

emotions and the sexual emotions, there is not only a superficial

antagonism, but an underlying relationship. At this time so great a

theologian and philosopher as Aquinas said that it is especially on the

days when a man is seeking to make himself pleasing to God that the Devil

troubles him by polluting him with seminal emissions. With somewhat more

psychological insight, the wise old Knight of the Tower, Landry, in the

fourteenth century, tells his daughters that "no young woman, in love,

can ever serve her God with that unfeignedness which she did aforetime.

For I have heard it argued by many who, in their young days, had been in

love that, when they were in the church, the condition and the pleasing

melancholy in which they found themselves would infallibly set them

brooding over all their tender love-sick longings and all their amorous

passages, when they should have been attending to the service which was

going on at the time. And such is the property of this mystery of love

that it is ever at the moment when the priest is holding our Saviour upon

the altar that the most enticing emotions come." After narrating the

history of two queens beyond the seas who indulged in amours even on Holy

Thursday and Good Friday, at midnight in their oratories, when the lights

were put out, he concludes: "Every woman in love is more liable to fall in

church or at her devotion than at any other time."

The connection between religious emotion and sexual emotion was very

clearly set forth by Swift about the end of the seventeenth century, in a

passage which it may be worth while to quote from his "Discourse

Concerning the Mechanical Operation of the Spirit." After mentioning that

he was informed by a very eminent physician that when the Quakers first

appeared he was seldom without female Quaker patients affected with

nymphomania, Swift continues: "Persons of a visionary devotion, either men

or women, are, in their complexion, of all others the most amorous. For

zeal is frequently kindled from the same spark with other fires, and from

inflaming brotherly love will proceed to raise that of a gallant. If we

inspect into the usual process of modern courtship, we shall find it to

consist in a devout turn of the eyes, called _ogling_; an artificial form

of canting and whining, by rote, every interval, for want of other matter,

made up with a shrug, or a hum; a sigh or a groan; the style compact of

insignificant words, incoherences, and repetitions. These I take to be the

most accomplished rules of address to a mistress; and where are these

performed with more dexterity than by the _saints_? Nay, to bring this

argument yet closer, I have been informed by certain sanguine brethren of

the first class, that in the height and _orgasmus_ of their spiritual

exercise, it has been frequent with them[388]; ... immediately after

which, they found the _spirit_ to relax and flag of a sudden with the

nerves, and they were forced to hasten to a conclusion. This may be

farther strengthened by observing with wonder how unaccountably all

females are attracted by visionary or enthusiastic preachers, though never

so contemptible in their _outward mien_; which is usually supposed to be

done upon considerations purely spiritual, without any carnal regards at

all. But I have reason to think, the sex hath certain characteristics, by

which they form a truer judgment of human abilities and performings than

we ourselves can possibly do of each other. Let that be as it will, thus

much is certain, that however spiritual intrigues begin, they generally

conclude like all others; they may branch upwards toward heaven, but the

root is in the earth. Too intense a contemplation is not the business of

flesh and blood; it must, by the necessary course of things, in a little

time let go its hold, and fall into _matter_. Lovers for the sake of

celestial converse, are but another sort of Platonics, who pretend to see

stars and heaven in ladies' eyes, and to look or think no lower; but the

same _pit_ is provided for both."

To come down to recent times, in the last century the head-master of

Clifton College, when discussing the sexual vices of boyhood, remarked

that the boys whose temperament exposes them to these faults are usually

far from destitute of religious feelings; that there is, and always has

been, an undoubted co-existence of religion and animalism; that emotional

appeals and revivals are far from rooting out carnal sin; and that in some

places, as is well known, they seem actually to stimulate, even at the

present day, to increased licentiousness.[389]

It is not difficult to see how, even in technique, the method of the

revivalist is a quasi-sexual method, and resembles the attempt of the male

to overcome the sexual shyness of the female. "In each case," as W. Thomas

remarks, "the will has to be set aside, and strong suggestive means are

used; and in both cases the appeal is not of the conflict type, but of an

intimate, sympathetic and pleading kind. In the effort to make a moral

adjustment it consequently turns out that a technique is used which

was derived originally from sexual life, and the use, so to speak,

of the sexual machinery for a moral adjustment involves, in some

cases, the carrying over into the general process of some sexual

manifestations."[390]