should be a change, he says, probably played a great role. This appetite often survives, and may even increase, after the menopause. Closely connected as the organs are with desire, they are not indispensable to it, but the need is more or less diffused throughout the entire organism. The agitation at puberty, as the individual prepares for the perpetuation of the species, is not only often not localized from lack of knowledge of organs and acts, but is general and not unlike hunger, which is not all located in the stomach but is the aggregate effect of the nutritive needs of all the cells and tissues. The glandular cells along the digestive tract are overcharged and need to function, as do overrested muscles; so " we love with our whole body and not a single anatomical element is dis- interested in the function of reproduction," and the soul as well as the body has its needs.
Concerning early intersexual vice I have spoken in the last chapter. How this is complicated with social and phys- ical disease two recent researches typically show. Baer,^ in a very valuable study of twenty-two murderers, in Berlin, between the ages of fourteen and eighteen, notes none of Lombroso's anatomical signs, but finds most to be victims of the vicious sexual precocity characteristic of young criminals in large cities. The crime was in most instances revoltingly brutal and without remorse, and most such cases are deemed incorrigibly defective in their moral if not their intellectual nature. Caldo ^ finds that most prostitutes fall between the ages of fifteen and eighteen, which he terms the period of sexual vulnerability toward which chief effort should be di- rected. Diseased women are always more dangerous than diseased men, and this youthful class is most infectious. Into this vaster field I can not enter here.^ * Ueber jugendliche Morder. Arch. f. Crim. Anthropol., Bd. xi, 1903. ' Vener^ologie Sociale. Le Progr^s Med., April 11, 1903.
• An interesting and valuable illustration of the awakening sense of responsibility in this field is seen in a comprehensive German report * based on 900 full answers to a six-page questionnaire, with 70 cases, showing the effects of church, plain speak- ing, and scientific literature on sex, association, and the dangers from soldiers, who ^ Die geschlechtlich-sittlichen Verhaltnisse der evangelischen Landbewohner im deutschen Reiche. i. Band. Ostdeutschland. Von Pastor H. Wittenberg und Pastor Dr. E. Huckstadt. Leipzig, 1895, pp. 309 and 236.
/ 432 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ADOLESCENCE IV. One of the very saddest of all the aspects of human weakness and sin is onanism, and to say that it is as important in treating adolescence as it is painful to consider is to say very much. Until recently it has been met on the one hand with either prudery and painstaking reticence or treated in terms of exaggerated horror, as in the " scare " and quack lit- erature. It still requires a great degree of moral earnestness to discuss it with candor and the requisite plainness. One thing can safely be assumed, namely, that no one ever fell into the habit by reading a serious work upon it. A sentence of Stuart Mill's has been well quoted ^ concerning it, viz., " The diseases of society can be no more checked or healed than those of the body without publicly speaking of them." To ignore or deny the wide prevalence of the evil, in the way often done, is sometimes honest ignorance, but is also often affectation and even a form of hypocrisy and cant. While scientific discussion of the subject may not be meant for all the young, lest they form too poor an opinion of human nature, it is, in my judgment, imperative for educators, and one of the richest scientific quarries opened by the new psy- chology.
The vice, as we know from Aristophanes, Ovid, Horace, and others, abounded in ancient Greece and Rome. The treatise of Hippocrates, 380 b. c, which ascribed the chief causal role to the spinal cord and gave it a fatalistic tone, was not excelled in acumen by any work upon the subject until the epoch-making treatise by Tissot,^ in 1760, which was classic in style and very important in its results. It sought to make headway against the nameless abuses and vices in France centering in the court of Louis XIV and XV. The works of Simon ^ and Lallemand * described the are called the most corrupting agency. Unmarried officers are called the curse of young women. Parental neglect is the first cause of lapses. On the whole this voluminous and very comprehensive report presents a sad monotone of iniquity, accented now and then by incidents of exceptional pathos, 1 Die Masturbation. Eine Monographic fiir Aerzte und Padagogen, von Dr. Med. Hermann Rohleder, Berlin, 1899, p. 319. One of the latest and best trea- tises on the subject.
• Traits d' Hygiene appliqu6 k I'^ducation de la Jeunesse, Paris, 1827. *Des Partes s^minales involontaires, Paris, 1836-42.
_il 4 SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT 433 consequences of self-abuse as terrible — diseases of the brain and cord, paralysis, dementia, blindness, tabes, etc., in ways truer to the needs of morality than to science. Indeed, salu- tary as were these works, their influence is still seen in the lurid effects of the vice as described in much of the current popular literature, and has tended to bring the serious efforts of science in this field into discredit. The two comprehensive treatises of Pouillet ^ brought us back to common sense. The fifth International Hygienic Congress at Budapest, in 1894, at which Cohn ^ read the outlines of his important treatise, almost marked an epoch in the frankness and scientific mode of treating the subject, as Fournier's ^ work had done in France. Tarnowsky, Rosenbach, Rohleder, Furbringer, Lowenfeld, Hosslin, Ribbing, Moll, Lombroso, Krafft-Ebing, I. P. West, Hammond, and others have in recent years shed much light upon this subject and the broader one of vita sexnalis in general. We shall, as far as practicable, confine ourselves to the adolescent aspects of the subject.
The first problem is the extent of the evil. Cohn pro- posed to send qviestionnaires to the best of the 21,000 Ger- man physicians and the 8,000 German students of medicine, requesting anonymous answers based upon their own school- memories and observations, but the scientific academy to which he appealed for the expenses of this research (some $1,500) has not yet responded. Until some such compre- hensive investigation is made, it is impossible to determine the extent of the vice. Many hold, however, that it is the most wide-spread of all the popular diseases. Blaschko, a BerHn expert, estimated in 1893 that there were yearly in that city over 30,000 cases who consulted physicians, and that if, in the four student years reckoned by averages, every patient was a different person, every student was treated for diseases indicating excess. Rohleder, in an earlier work pub- lished in 1895, estimated that ninety per cent had practised it, and the next year concluded that about all men once at least in * L'Onanisme chez I'homme, 1883. L'Onanisme chez la femme. Tr. from the sixth edition in eight numbers of the Med. Times and Register, 1896.
* Was kann die Schule gegen die Masturbation des Kindes thun, von Prof. Hermann Cohn, Berlin, 1894.
' De rOnanisme, Paris, 1893. 29 434 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ADOLESCENCE their lives had been guilty. Berger ^ asserts the same. Tis- sot, in 1759, found every pupil in the lycee he investigated guilty. Benseman asserts its enormous prevalence in the English high schools. Moll quotes approvingly the phrase, " who denies it has forgotten," and Cohn is cynical enough to say, " If any one denies that he ever did it, he does it now." Dr. Seerley, of Springfield, Mass., found out of one hundred and twenty-five academic students, eight who satisfied him they had never indulged in it, and of three hundred and forty- seven who answered his questions, seventy-one denied having practised it. It was found to be practised without a single exception in a certain reform school known to the writer, where the inmates competed and the one who could consum- mate it oftenest daily was the object of a certain hero-wor- ship. Because it is so dangerous, and liable to occur in indi- viduals who lack stamina, it has its octopus-grasp in nearly all institutions for the defective classes. It is known to be practically ineradicable in institutions for the feeble-minded, and I have been told by heads of schools for deaf-mutes, and still more emphatically by officers of institutions for the blind, that in these — perhaps because they lack the normal quantum of sense stimuli and are less active and objective in their habits — it is peculiarly prevalent and tenacious.
F. S. Brockman ^ received two hundred and thirty-two replies from college and theological students at an average age of twenty-three and a half years, to the question, " What was the severest temptation of your school days? " One hun- dred and thirty-two specified masturbation, and ninety-two specified other sexual temptations, and these two together con- stituted five more than all other temptations combined. In forty-two papers only out of the two hundred and thirty-two was there no clear intimation of this form of temptation. '* There were seventy-five who were guilty of masturbation after their conversion, and twenty-four after they had decided to become ministers." Some specified their struggles with this temptation at great length. Brockman sums up his conclu- * Archiv fiir Psych., 1896.
> A study of the moral and religious life of two hundred and fifty-one students in the United States. Ped. Sem., vol. ix, p. 255.
SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT 435 sions as showing an alarming extent of this vice, a mor- bid state of mind thus occasioned, the stronghold which the habit still has, and the uniformity with which they blame their elders for not having warned them. The literature upon the various modes in which it is practised and the methods of imitation, contagion, and the seduction of younger by older boys is copious. We may well hope that these estimates are exaggerated, and the writer at least feels, as probably every reader will, a strong disposition to discredit with indignation all high estimates until they are forced home by statistics upon methods invulnerable to criticism. Yet it must be con- fessed that the whole literature of the subject attests that wherever careful researches have been undertaken, the results are appalling as to prevalence, and suggest that the Occi- dent has little, if any, advantage over the sad records of the Orient, and that civilized man is on the whole, to say the least, no better, if not far worse, in this respect than his savage brother.
Strange to say, this perversion is not peculiar to man; for we have many and well-attested reports of its prevalence among monkeys, dogs, blood stallions, elephants, turkeys, etc., although in many of these cases the cHmax is not reached. Another sad chapter is that which describes it among children of tender years. There are well-authenticated cases where children of both sexes under two years of age have practised it, and far more cases are on record for still later childish years. In some cases it is taught by nurses, older children, or perverts; but there is abundant evidence that even with the very young, and still more with those older, the old view that it was not spontaneously learned, but due to example and moral infection, was wrong. It is one of the easiest and most spontaneous of all vices, and in very young children many now think it a disease more frequent among girls than boys. Some now believe that sucking the thumbs, fingers, rubber or other artificial nipples predisposes to it. It certainly does not need to be taught and may be spontaneous, although, in fact, it is probably in most cases contagious. All agree that the early years of puberty, from twelve to fourteen, are those in which it is most common. Sometimes an epidemic of mutualism, or some other form of it, devastates an entire 43^ THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ADOLESCENCE school, and many cases are on record where its prevalence in these years passes all non-expert credence. During the teens the intensity and frequency of it in individual cases, particularly in those of sanguine and choleric temperament, is no less difficult to believe. It sometimes reaches a satyr- iasic and nymphomaniac degree, and many, if not most, of the perversions originate in these years.
Its causes are many and difficult to proportion. Prominent among these is precocious mental development and too much psychic and too little physical expression. In these cases the attention of the child, in the progress of self-knowledge of its own body, is certain to be instinctively directed, as a mere matter of curiosity, to its sexual parts, and this is very greatly favored by a sitting position, especially if long maintained, which of itself is a stimulus, and by absence of other intense interests. Even in those of perfervid fancy the habit is some- times formed in complete ignorance of its meaning. With knowledge, it is a matter of the strength of will, and wherever mental overwork weakens this, it tends to that irritable weak- ness of the nervous system which makes the rankest ground for onanism. Whether the central nervous system acts most upon the organs or vice versa, a question much discussed, is no doubt largely an individual matter, for probably each af- fects the other, but in different degrees in different stages of development. Wherever children mature early in mind there is special danger of a wrong direction, and therefore need of all the methods of control. The temperament from which hysteria and epilepsy spring is volcanic, and makes perhaps the best natural psychic constitution for the development of this evil. The physical processes of first menstruation pre- dispose to it, and with some instruction or instinctive fore- boding of its evil, cause violent struggles of soul which are exhausting in themselves. • • A long list of skin diseases — pruritus, eczema, urticaria, and various parasitic disorders like scabies — increase the dan- gers. A consumptive heredity is a powerful predisposing agent. This insidious disease seems to act on human nature like a worm upon fruit in producing premature ripeness and activity of the reproductive function. A long convalescence, piles, habitual constipation, irritating urinal deposits, malfor- SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT 437 mation of the organs, idleness and laziness, weakness of will in general, and doubtless heredity, play important etio- logical roles. Among the external causes are springtime, which is a peculiarly dangerous season, warm climates, im- proper clothes, rich food, indigestion, mental overwork, nerv^; ousness, habits of defective cleanliness, especially of a local kind, prolonged sitting or standing, too monotonous walking, sitting cross-legged, spanking, late rising, petting and indul- gence, corsets that produce stagnation or hyperemia of blood in the lower part of the body, too great straining of the mem- ory— the causal influences of all these are expatiated on in detail by Rohleder and others.
Prominent among predisposing causes are often placed erotic reading, pictures, and theatrical presentations, Cohn even pleads for an expurgated Bible and dictionary, and others would banish the Odes of Horace, the Satires of Juve- nal, to say nothing of Martial and Terence, and forbid ballets. Certain drugs, like phosphorus, cocaine, opium, camphor, and inhalation of oxygen, are now known to have stimulating, while others, like digitalis, saltpeter, arsenic, have an opposite effect. Schiller protests against trousers-pockets for boys, as do others against feather-beds, while even horseback-riding and the bicycle have been placed under the ban by a few recent extremist writers. Indulgence in intoxicating drink without doubt predisposes to it, as does any physical or psy- chic difficulty in access to closets, solitude, certain perfumes, overeating, fondling, fur, and rocking-chairs.
In general, while for a healthy child under good influ- ences the majority of these causes can be successfully defied, like other of the ultra-refinements of modern hygiene, the greater the liability of the disease the more necessary does it become to attend to the very slightest etiological motives. While some are more or less frigid to the great majority of these favoring influences, the delicate, nervous child may re- spond in more or less degree to them all, even the slightest; and it should never be forgotten that early adolescent years are sensitive to all matters pertaining to sex, even very re- motely, to a degree that science probably does not yet recog- nize and about which the ordinary parent is densely ignorant and optimistic, and which the child himself does not begin 43^ THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ADOLESCENCE to comprehend. The prurient often experiment with them- selves in seeking assurance that function is normal, and this leads to manipulation and then to masturbation in the early teens, which is often carried on for a few years. The new sense of virility brings a certain deep elation that in coarser natures even becomes ostentatious and boastful before their mates, and sometimes especially before younger boys, with a vaunting feehng of superiority. The first orgasm, especially if forced at premature age, consists in a general and diffused glow and exhilaration of the sense of well-being even before emission is possible. This gives a heightened sense of the value of life, and a flush of ecstasy and joy that tinges the world with a glory that is far more than sensuous. But be- fore this function is well developed the Nemesis of depression follows hard after these exaltations, and both states arouse thought and fancy in new directions and with a vividness un- known before. In bright, nervous children pubescence often dawns with almost fulminating intensity and suddenness, and sweeps the individual into pernicious ways long before moral or even intellectual restraints are operative. Excessive dan- ger here is one of the penalties man pays for that inestimable tool of his development on to the human plane — the hand. The very definition of precocity involves inversion; the order of nascent periods has been reversed in both sequence and strength. Wherever this occurs the race deteriorates. Yield- ing to mere and gross sensuous pleasure shortens the growth period, and the only way to prolong it and attain an ever higher and fuller maturity for the race is by the plain old virtue of self-restraint. This is probably the field of most active and normal natural selection. The ascendant individ- ual family or stock is the one that refuses to yield in excess to the temptation of the flesh, and the descendants are those whose instincts for selfish gratification preponderate over those of race-conservatism. These are the sins of the parents that are visited on their children, devitalizing, arresting their full development, and finally exterminating them. Honor to the unborn by parents is their chief claim to reverence by their children, and to enfeeble the power of hereditary transmission is worthy the contempt and curses which recent liter- ature has often represented as felt by degenerates for those SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT 439 responsible for their existence. The invective of a decadent son upon a sire but for whose private vice he might have been well born, is as haunting and characteristic a note of our modern culture as was the curse of Atreus's time for ancient Greece.
In discussing the results of onanism, we must first of all recognize that the immediate and sensational effects often seriously believed in, and often purposely exaggerated for ped- agogic effects, are not so immediate or disastrous as repre- sented in both the popular and the earlier literature. The brain is not literally drained away; dementia, idiocy, palsy, and sudden death are not imminent, nor is there any peculiar infallible expression, attitude, or any other manifestation in- stantly recognizable by experts. Current impression to this effect has much to do in causing terror, shamefacedness, and some of the bashfulness and solitude sometimes seen.
Perhaps the most common psychic result is a sense of un- worthiness, sin, pollution, and the serious diminution of self- respect, often instinctively covered or resisted by whimmish and boisterous self-assertion, or occasionally hidden by al- most morbid scrupulousness and convictions of foreboding disaster or penalty. In what theologians have described as the conviction of sin, this plays an enormous and hitherto unappreciated role. Consciousness of a vice so hated and despised is a potent factor in youthful melancholia, taking away the joy of life, and sometimes plunging the victim into discouragement culminating in a sense of utter despair. It is one of the causes of most of the morbid types of self-con- sciousness or introspection. The struggle between what is felt to be right, pure, honorable, and the lusts of the flesh is always hard for sanity, so that the physical lassitude and the sense of inadequacy to meet the ordinary burdens of life are not infrequently overwhelming. Now there is resolution and confidence as nature repairs lesions and buttresses bud- ding manhood and womanhood against undermining influ- ences from her beneficent and inexhaustible storehouse of growth-energy, but a lapse plunges into the depths again, so that the cyclic psychoses of undue elevation and exaltation, succeeded by depression, are established. Struggles for abso- lute purity and perfection germane to this age are met by 440 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ADOLESCENCE the influences that seem to spring from the prince of dark- ness and his abode. This dualism, which strains the unity of personality and makes hell-fires a subjective reality, divides the soul against itself and diverts energy otherwise available for study, exercise, and normal growth, and leads to many a battle with Apollyon absolutely unsuspected by all, so that many effects thought by many medical writers to be the re- sults of physical laws are really due to the wear and tear of psychic struggles. Disciples of Dupenlin and Hartmann, like Mailouch, Kiirnig, and others, make the highest human vir- tue to refrain from procreation, and not a few of them, in terms carefully guarded against the law, praise self-abuse, sexual perversity, abortion, etc., as midway between the supreme merit of perfect celibacy of body and soul and the summum malum of bringing children into the world. In every sane and moral mind the pessimistic cynicism of such views needs no refutation.
Prominent and preliminary in the study of effects is the problem whether self-abuse is more pernicious than excess in the natural way, and how the two differ. Here authorities are diametrically opposed. Some, especially those of a decade or two ago, have declared the effects to be the same, but now I find no competent authority who does not assert that abuse is far more injurious, and that in many ways; first, because it can be indulged in more readily, as the means are always at hand. This, of course, makes the dangers of excess far greater. Again, the stimailus is very different and more con- centrated in time and place, and therefore tends to make the act more precipitate and convulsive. The evils of masturba- tion are due to the fact that, being unnatural, it requires greater excitement to produce the same effect; the action, moreover, is more specialized and limited; is less bound down to outer conditions, and can be more frequent; favors too early discharge and spermatorrhea and lacks the normality of gradual approach by the preliminary excitation of all the secondary sexual qualities of mind and body. All the irradia- tions of touch, sight, gradual approach, the long-circuit stim- uli through the secondary sex qualities are lost, and the act is more brutal and descends far lower in the phylogenetic scale of animality. The normal act often produces an exaggerated SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT 44 1