deformed. This was the case with Cowper (though this significant fact is suppressed by his biographers); Ruskin was divorced for a reason of this kind; and J.S. Mill, it is said, was sexually of little more than infantile development.
Up to this point I have been considering the quality of chastity and the quality of asceticism in their most general sense and without any attempt at precise differentiation.[91] But if we are to accept these as modern virtues, valid to-day, it is necessary that we should be somewhat more precise in defining them. It seems most convenient, and most strictly accordant also with etymology, if we agree to mean by asceticism or _ascesis_, the athlete quality of self-discipline, controlling, by no means necessarily for indefinitely prolonged periods, the gratification of the sexual impulse. By chastity, which is primarily the quality of purity, and secondarily that of holiness, rather than of abstinence, we may best understand a due proportion between erotic claims and the other claims of life. "Chastity," as Ellen Key well says, "is harmony between body and soul in relation to love." Thus comprehended, asceticism is the virtue of control that leads up to erotic gratification, and chastity is the virtue which exerts its harmonizing influence in the erotic life itself.
It will be seen that asceticism by no means necessarily involves perpetual continence. Properly understood, asceticism is a discipline, a training, which has reference to an end not itself. If it is compulsorily perpetual, whether at the dictates of a religious dogma, or as a mere fetish, it is no longer on a natural basis, and it is no longer moral, for the restraint of a man who has spent his whole life in a prison is of no value for life. If it is to be natural and to be moral asceticism must have an end outside itself, it must subserve the ends of vital activity, which cannot be subserved by a person who is engaged in a perpetual struggle with his own natural instincts. A man may, indeed, as a matter of taste or preference, live his whole life in sexual abstinence, freely and easily, but in that case he is not an ascetic, and his abstinence is neither a subject for applause nor for criticism.
In the same way chastity, far from involving sexual abstinence, only has its value when it is brought within the erotic sphere. A purity that is ignorance, when the age of childish innocence is once passed, is mere stupidity; it is nearer to vice than to virtue. Nor is purity consonant with effort and struggle; in that respect it differs from asceticism. "We conquer the bondage of sex," Rosa Mayreder says, "by acceptance, not by denials, and men can only do this with the help of women." The would-be chastity of cold calculation is equally unbeautiful and unreal, and without any sort of value. A true and worthy chastity can only be supported by an ardent ideal, whether, as among the early Christians, this is the erotic ideal of a new romance, or, as among ourselves, a more humanly erotic ideal. "Only erotic idealism," says Ellen Key, "can arouse enthusiasm for chastity." Chastity in a healthily developed person can thus be beautifully exercised only in the actual erotic life; in part it is the natural instinct of dignity and temperance; in part it is the art of touching the things of sex with hands that remember their aptness for all the fine ends of life. Upon the doorway of entrance to the inmost sanctuary of love there is thus the same inscription as on the doorway to the Epidaurian Sanctuary of Aesculapius: "None but the pure shall enter here."
It will be seen that the definition of chastity remains somewhat lacking in precision. That is inevitable. We cannot grasp purity tightly, for, like snow, it will merely melt in our hands. "Purity itself forbids too minute a system of rules for the observance of purity," well says Sidgwick (_Methods of Ethics_, Bk. iii, Ch. IX). Elsewhere (op. cit., Bk. iii, Ch. XI) he attempts to answer the question: What sexual relations are essentially impure? and concludes that no answer is possible. "There appears to be no distinct principle, having any claim to self-evidence, upon which the question can be answered so as to command general assent." Even what is called "Free Love," he adds, "in so far as it is earnestly advocated as a means to a completer harmony of sentiment between men and women, cannot be condemned as impure, for it seems paradoxical to distinguish purity from impurity merely by less rapidity of transition."
Moll, from the standpoint of medical psychology, reaches the same conclusion as Sidgwick from that of ethics. In a report on the "Value of Chastity for Men," published as an appendix to the third edition (1899) of his _Konträre Sexualempfindung_, the distinguished Berlin physician discusses the matter with much vigorous common sense, insisting that "chaste and unchaste are _relative ideas_." We must not, he states, as is so often done, identify "chaste" with "sexually abstinent." He adds that we are not justified in describing all extra-marital sexual intercourse as unchaste, for, if we do so, we shall be compelled to regard nearly all men, and some very estimable women, as unchaste. He rightly insists that in this matter we must apply the same rule to women as to men, and he points out that even when it involves what may be technically adultery sexual intercourse is not necessarily unchaste. He takes the case of a girl who, at eighteen, when still mentally immature, is married to a man with whom she finds it impossible to live and a separation consequently occurs, although a divorce may be impossible to obtain. If she now falls passionately in love with a man her love may be entirely chaste, though it involves what is technically adultery.
In thus understanding asceticism and chastity, and their beneficial functions in life, we see that they occupy a place midway between the artificially exaggerated position they once held and that to which they were degraded by the inevitable reaction of total indifference or actual hostility which followed. Asceticism and chastity are not rigid categorical imperatives; they are useful means to desirable ends; they are wise and beautiful arts. They demand our estimation, but not our over-estimation. For in over-estimating them, it is too often forgotten, we over-estimate the sexual instinct. The instinct of sex is indeed extremely important. Yet it has not that all-embracing and supereminent importance which some, even of those who fight against it, are accustomed to believe. That artificially magnified conception of the sexual impulse is fortified by the artificial emphasis placed upon asceticism. We may learn the real place of the sexual impulse in learning how we may reasonably and naturally view the restraints on that impulse.
FOOTNOTES: [69] For Blake and for Shelley, as well as, it may be added, for Hinton, chastity, as Todhunter remarks in his _Study of Shelley_, is "a type of submission to the actual, a renunciation of the infinite, and is therefore hated by them. The chaste man, i.e., the man of prudence and self-control, is the man who has lost the nakedness of his primitive innocence."
[70] For evidence of the practices of savages in this matter, see Appendix _A_ to the third volume of these _Studies_, "The Sexual Instinct in Savages." Cf. also Chs. IV and VII of Westermarck's _History of Human Marriage_, and also Chs. XXXVIII and XLI of the same author's _Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas_, vol. ii; Frazer's _Golden Bough_ contains much bearing on this subject, as also Crawley's _Mystic Rose_.
[71] See, e.g., Westermarck, _Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas_, vol. ii, pp. 412 et seq.
[72] Thus an old Maori declared, a few years ago, that the decline of his race has been entirely due to the loss of the ancient religious faith in the _tabu_. "For," said he (I quote from an Auckland newspaper), "in the olden-time our _tapu_ ramified the whole social system. The head, the hair, spots where apparitions appeared, places which the _tohungas_ proclaimed as sacred, we have forgotten and disregarded. Who nowadays thinks of the sacredness of the head? See when the kettle boils, the young man jumps up, whips the cap off his head, and uses it for a kettle-holder. Who nowadays but looks on with indifference when the barber of the village, if he be near the fire, shakes the loose hair off his cloth into it, and the joke and the laughter goes on as if no sacred operation had just been concluded. Food is consumed on places which, in bygone days, it dared not even be carried over."
[73] Thus, long before Christian monks arose, the ascetic life of the cloister on very similar lines existed in Egypt in the worship of Serapis (Dill, _Roman Society_, p. 79).
[74] At night, in the baptistry, with lamps dimly burning, the women were stripped even of their tunics, plunged three times in the pool, then anointed, dressed in white, and kissed.
[75] Thus Jerome, in his letter to Eustochium, refers to those couples who "share the same room, often even the same bed, and call us suspicious if we draw any conclusions," while Cyprian (_Epistola_, 86) is unable to approve of those men he hears of, one a deacon, who live in familiar intercourse with virgins, even sleeping in the same bed with them, for, he declares, the feminine sex is weak and youth is wanton.
[76] Perpetua (_Acta Sanctorum_, March 7) is termed by Hort and Mayor "that fairest flower in the garden of post-Apostolic Christendom." She was not, however, a virgin, but a young mother with a baby at her breast.
[77] The strength of early Christian asceticism lay in its spontaneous and voluntary character. When, in the ninth century, the Carlovingians attempted to enforce monastic and clerical celibacy, the result was a great outburst of unchastity and crime; nunneries became brothels, nuns were frequently guilty of infanticide, monks committed unspeakable abominations, the regular clergy formed incestuous relations with their nearest female relatives (Lea, _History of Sacerdotal Celibacy_, vol. i, pp, 155 et seq.).
[78] Sénancour, _De l'Amour_, vol. ii, p. 233. Islam has placed much less stress on chastity than Christianity, but practically, it would appear, there is often more regard for chastity under Mohammedan rule than under Christian rule. Thus it is stated by "Viator" (_Fortnightly Review_, Dec., 1908) that formerly, under Turkish Moslem rule, it was impossible to buy the virtue of women in Bosnia, but that now, under the Christian rule of Austria, it is everywhere possible to buy women near the Austrian frontier.
[79] The basis of this feeling was strengthened when it was shown by scholars that the physical virtue of "virginity" had been masquerading under a false name. To remain a virgin seems to have meant at the first, among peoples of early Aryan culture, by no means to take a vow of chastity, but to refuse to submit to the yoke of patriarchal marriage. The women who preferred to stand outside marriage were "virgins," even though mothers of large families, and Æschylus speaks of the Amazons as "virgins," while in Greek the child of an unmarried girl was always "the virgin's son." The history of Artemis, the most primitive of Greek deities, is instructive from this point of view. She was originally only virginal in the sense that she rejected marriage, being the goddess of a nomadic and matriarchal hunting people who had not yet adopted marriage, and she was the goddess of childbirth, worshipped with orgiastic dances and phallic emblems. It was by a late transformation that Artemis became the goddess of chastity (Farnell, _Cults of the Greek States_, vol. ii, pp. 442 et seq.; Sir W.M. Ramsay, _Cities of Phrygia_, vol. i, p. 96; Paul Lafargue, "Les Mythes Historiques," _Revue des Idées_, Dec., 1904).
[80] See, e.g., Nicomachean Ethics, Bk. iii, Ch. XIII.
[81] _De Civitate Dei_, lib. xv, cap. XX. A little further on (lib. xvi, cap. XXV) he refers to Abraham as a man able to use women as a man should, his wife temperately, his concubine compliantly, neither immoderately.
[82] _Summa_, Migne's edition, vol. iii, qu. 154, art. I.
[83] See the Study of Modesty in the first volume of these _Studies_.
[84] The majority of chaste youths, remarks an acute critic of modern life (Hellpach, _Nervosität und Kultur_, p. 175), are merely actuated by traditional principles, or by shyness, fear of venereal infections, lack of self-confidence, want of money, very seldom by any consideration for a future wife, and that indeed would be a tragi-comic error, for a woman lays no importance on intact masculinity. Moreover, he adds, the chaste man is unable to choose a wife wisely, and it is among teachers and clergymen--the chastest class--that most unhappy marriages are made. Milton had already made this fact an argument for facility of divorce.
[85] "In eating," said Hinton, "we have achieved the task of combining pleasure with an absence of 'lust.' The problem for man and woman is so to use and possess the sexual passion as to make it the minister to higher things, with no restraint on it but that. It is essentially connected with things of the spiritual order, and would naturally revolve round them. To think of it as merely bodily is a mistake."
[86] See "Analysis of the Sexual Impulse," and Appendix, "The Sexual Instinct in Savages," in vol. iii of these _Studies_.
[87] I have elsewhere discussed more at length the need in modern civilized life of a natural and sincere asceticism (see _Affirmations_, 1898) "St. Francis and Others."
[89] At the age of twenty-five, when he had already produced much fine work, Mozart wrote in his letters that he had never touched a woman, though he longed for love and marriage. He could not afford to marry, he would not seduce an innocent girl, a venial relation was repulsive to him.
[90] Reibmayr, _Die Entwicklungsgeschichte des Talentes und Genies._, Bd. i, p. 437.
[91] We may exclude altogether, it is scarcely necessary to repeat, the quality of virginity--that is to say, the possession of an intact hymen--since this is a merely physical quality with no necessary ethical relationships. The demand for virginity in women is, for the most part, either the demand for a better marketable article, or for a more powerful stimulant to masculine desire. Virginity involves no moral qualities in its possessor. Chastity and asceticism, on the other hand, are meaningless terms, except as demands made by the spirit on itself or on the body it controls.
CHAPTER VI.
THE PROBLEM OF SEXUAL ABSTINENCE.
The Influence of Tradition--The Theological Conception of Lust--Tendency of These Influences to Degrade Sexual Morality--Their Result in Creating the Problem of Sexual Abstinence--The Protests Against Sexual Abstinence--Sexual Abstinence and Genius--Sexual Abstinence in Women--The Advocates of Sexual Abstinence--Intermediate Attitude--Unsatisfactory Nature of the Whole Discussion--Criticism of the Conception of Sexual Abstinence--Sexual Abstinence as Compared to Abstinence from Food--No Complete Analogy--The Morality of Sexual Abstinence Entirely Negative--Is It the Physician's Duty to Advise Extra-Conjugal Sexual Intercourse?--Opinions of Those Who Affirm or Deny This Duty--The Conclusion Against Such Advice--The Physician Bound by the Social and Moral Ideas of His Age--The Physician as Reformer--Sexual Abstinence and Sexual Hygiene--Alcohol--The Influence of Physical and Mental Exercise--The Inadequacy of Sexual Hygiene in This Field--The Unreal Nature of the Conception of Sexual Abstinence--The Necessity of Replacing It by a More Positive Ideal.
When we look at the matter from a purely abstract or even purely biological point of view, it might seem that in deciding that asceticism and chastity are of high value for the personal life we have said all that is necessary to say. That, however, is very far from being the case. We soon realize here, as at every point in the practical application of sexual psychology, that it is not sufficient to determine the abstractly right course along biological lines. We have to harmonize our biological demands with social demands. We are ruled not only by natural instincts but by inherited traditions, that in the far past were solidly based on intelligible grounds, and that even still, by the mere fact of their existence, exert a force which we cannot and ought not to ignore.
In discussing the valuation of the sexual impulse we found that we had good ground for making a very high estimate of love. In discussing chastity and asceticism we found that they also are highly to be valued. And we found that, so far from any contradiction being here involved, love and chastity are intertwined in all their finest developments, and that there is thus a perfect harmony in apparent opposition. But when we come to consider the matter in detail, in its particular personal applications, we find that a new factor asserts itself. We find that our inherited social and religious traditions exert a pressure, all on one side, which makes it impossible to place the relations of love and chastity simply on the basis of biology and reason. We are confronted at the outset by our traditions. On the one side these traditions have weighted the word "lust"--considered as expressing all the manifestations of the sexual impulse which are outside marriage or which fail to have marriage as their direct and ostentatious end--with deprecatory and sinister meanings. And on the other side these traditions have created the problem of "sexual abstinence," which has nothing to do with either asceticism or chastity as these have been defined in the previous chapter, but merely with the purely negative pressure on the sexual impulse, exerted, independently of the individual's wishes, by his religious and social environment.
The theological conception of "lust," or "libido," as sin, followed logically the early Christian conception of "the flesh," and became inevitable as soon as that conception was firmly established. Not only, indeed, had early Christian ideals a degrading influence on the estimation of sexual desire _per se_, but they tended to depreciate generally the dignity of the sexual relationship. If a man made sexual advances to a woman outside marriage, and thus brought her within the despised circle of "lust," he was injuring her because he was impairing her religious and moral value.[92] The only way he could repair the damage done was by paying her money or by entering into a forced and therefore probably unfortunate marriage with her. That is to say that sexual relationships were, by the ecclesiastical traditions, placed on a pecuniary basis, on the same level as prostitution. By its well-meant intentions to support the theological morality which had developed on an ascetic basis, the Church was thus really undermining even that form of sexual relationship which it sanctified.
Gregory the Great ordered that the seducer of a virgin shall marry her, or, in case of refusal, be severely punished corporally and shut up in a monastery to perform penance. According to other ecclesiastical rules, the seducer of a virgin, though held to no responsibility by the civil forum, was required to marry her, or to find a husband and furnish a dowry for her. Such rules had their good side, and were especially equitable when seduction had been accomplished by deceit. But they largely tended in practice to subordinate all questions of sexual morality to a money question. The reparation to the woman, also, largely became necessary because the ecclesiastical conception of lust caused her value to be depreciated by contact with lust, and the reparation might be said to constitute a part of penance. Aquinas held that lust, in however slight a degree, is a mortal sin, and most of the more influential theologians took a view nearly or quite as rigid. Some, however, held that a certain degree of delectation is possible in these matters without mortal sin, or asserted, for instance, that to feel the touch of a soft and warm hand is not mortal sin so long as no sexual feeling is thereby aroused. Others, however, held that such distinctions are impossible, and that all pleasures of this kind are sinful. Tomás Sanchez endeavored at much length to establish rules for the complicated problems of delectation that thus arose, but he was constrained to admit that no rules are really possible, and that such matters must be left to the judgment of a prudent man. At that point casuistry dissolves and the modern point of view emerges (see, e.g., Lea, _History of Auricular Confession_, vol. ii, pp. 57, 115, 246, etc.).
Even to-day the influence of the old traditions of the Church still unconsciously survives among us. That is inevitable as regards religious teachers, but it is found also in men of science, even in Protestant countries. The result is that quite contradictory dogmas are found side by side, even in the same writer. On the one hand, the manifestations of the sexual impulse are emphatically condemned as both unnecessary and evil; on the other hand, marriage, which is fundamentally (whatever else it may also be) a manifestation of the sexual impulse, receives equally emphatic approval as the only proper and moral form of living.[93] There can be no reasonable doubt whatever that it is to the surviving and pervading influence of the ancient traditional theological conception of _libido_ that we must largely attribute the sharp difference of opinions among physicians on the question of sexual abstinence and the otherwise unnecessary acrimony with which these opinions have sometimes been stated.
On the one side, we find the emphatic statement that sexual intercourse is necessary and that health cannot be maintained unless the sexual activities are regularly exercised.
"All parts of the body which are developed for a definite use are kept in health, and in the enjoyment of fair growth and of long youth, by the fulfilment of that use, and by their appropriate exercise in the employment to which they are accustomed." In that statement, which occurs in the great Hippocratic treatise "On the Joints," we have the classic expression of the doctrine which in ever varying forms has been taught by all those who have protested against sexual abstinence. When we come down to the sixteenth century outbreak of Protestantism we find that Luther's revolt against Catholicism was in part a protest against the teaching of sexual abstinence. "He to whom the gift of continence is not given," he said in his _Table Talk_, "will not become chaste by fasting and vigils. For my own part I was not excessively tormented [though elsewhere he speaks of the great fires of lust by which he had been troubled], but all the same the more I macerated myself the more I burnt." And three hundred years later, Bebel, the would-be nineteenth century Luther of a different Protestantism, took the same attitude towards sexual abstinence, while Hinton the physician and philosopher, living in a land of rigid sexual conventionalism and prudery, and moved by keen sympathy for the sufferings he saw around him, would break into passionate sarcasm when confronted by the doctrine of sexual abstinence. "There are innumerable ills--terrible destructions, madness even, the ruin of lives--for which the embrace of man and woman would be a remedy. No one thinks of questioning it. Terrible evils and a remedy in a delight and joy! And man has chosen so to muddle his life that he must say: 'There, that would be a remedy, but I cannot use it. I _must be virtuous!_'" If we confine ourselves to modern times and to fairly precise medical statements, we find in Schurig's _Spermatologia_ (1720, pp. 274 et seq.), not only a discussion of the advantages of moderate sexual intercourse in a number of disorders, as witnessed by famous authorities, but also a list of results--including anorexia, insanity, impotence, epilepsy, even death--which were believed to have been due to sexual abstinence. This extreme view of the possible evils of sexual abstinence seems to have been part of the Renaissance traditions of medicine stiffened by a certain opposition between religion and science. It was still rigorously stated by Lallemand early in the nineteenth century. Subsequently, the medical statements of the evil results of sexual abstinence became more temperate and measured, though still often pronounced. Thus Gyurkovechky believes that these results may be as serious as those of sexual excess. Krafft-Ebing showed that sexual abstinence could produce a state of general nervous excitement (_Jahrbuch für Psychiatrie_, Bd. viii, Heft 1 and 2). Schrenck-Notzing regards sexual abstinence as a cause of extreme sexual hyperæsthesia and of various perversions (in a chapter on sexual abstinence in his _Kriminalpsychologische und Psychopathologische Studien_, 1902, pp. 174-178). He records in illustration the case of a man of thirty-six who had masturbated in moderation as a boy, but abandoned the practice entirely, on moral grounds, twenty years ago, and has never had sexual intercourse, feeling proud to enter marriage a chaste man, but now for years has suffered greatly from extreme sexual hyperæsthesia and concentration of thought on sexual subjects, notwithstanding a strong will and the resolve not to masturbate or indulge in illicit intercourse. In another case a vigorous and healthy man, not inverted, and with strong sexual desires, who remained abstinent up to marriage, suffers from psychic impotence, and his wife remains a virgin notwithstanding all her affection and caresses. Ord considered that sexual abstinence might produce many minor evils. "Most of us," he wrote (_British Medical Journal_, Aug. 2, 1884) "have, no doubt, been consulted by men, chaste in act, who are tormented by sexual excitement. They tell one stories of long-continued local excitement, followed by intense muscular weariness, or by severe aching pain in the back and legs. In some I have had complaints of swelling and stiffness in the legs, and of pains in the joints, particularly in the knees;" he gives the case of a man who suffered after prolonged chastity from inflammatory conditions of knees and was only cured by marriage. Pearce Gould, it may be added, finds that "excessive ungratified sexual desire" is one of the causes of acute orchitis. Remondino ("Some Observations on Continence as a Factor in Health and Disease," _Pacific Medical Journal_, Jan., 1900) records the case of a gentleman of nearly seventy who, during the prolonged illness of his wife, suffered from frequent and extreme priapism, causing insomnia. He was very certain that his troubles were not due to his continence, but all treatment failed and there were no spontaneous emissions. At last Remondino advised him to, as he expresses it, "imitate Solomon." He did so, and all the symptoms at once disappeared. This case is of special interest, because the symptoms were not accompanied by any conscious sexual desire. It is no longer generally believed that sexual abstinence tends to produce insanity, and the occasional cases in which prolonged and intense sexual desire in young women is followed by insanity will usually be found to occur on a basis of hereditary degeneration. It is held by many authorities, however, that minor mental troubles, of a more or less vague character, as well as neurasthenia and hysteria, are by no means infrequently due to sexual abstinence. Thus Freud, who has carefully studied angstneurosis, the obsession of anxiety, finds that it is a result of sexual abstinence, and may indeed be considered as a vicarious form of such abstinence (Freud, _Sammlung Kleiner Schriften zur Neurosenlehre_, 1906, pp. 76 et seq.).
The whole subject of sexual abstinence has been discussed at length by Nyström, of Stockholm, in _Das Geschlechtsleben und seine Gesetze_, Ch. III. He concludes that it is desirable that continence should be preserved as long as possible in order to strengthen the physical health and to develop the intelligence and character. The doctrine of permanent sexual abstinence, however, he regards as entirely false, except in the case of a small number of religious or philosophic persons. "Complete abstinence during a long period of years cannot be borne without producing serious results both on the body and the mind...Certainly, a young man should repress his sexual impulses as long as possible and avoid everything that may artificially act as a sexual stimulant. If, however, he has done so, and still suffers from unsatisfied normal sexual desires, and if he sees no possibility of marriage within a reasonable time, no one should dare to say that he is committing a sin if, with mutual understanding, he enters into sexual relations with a woman friend, or forms temporary sexual relationships, provided, that is, that he takes the honorable precaution of begetting no children, unless his partner is entirely willing to become a mother, and he is prepared to accept all the responsibilities of fatherhood." In an article of later date ("Die Einwirkung der Sexuellen Abstinenz auf die Gesundheit," _Sexual-Probleme_, July, 1908) Nyström vigorously sums up his views. He includes among the results of sexual abstinence orchitis, frequent involuntary seminal emissions, impotence, neurasthenia, depression, and a great variety of nervous disturbances of vaguer character, involving diminished power of work, limited enjoyment of life, sleeplessness, nervousness, and pre-occupation with sexual desires and imaginations. More especially there is heightened sexual irritability with erections, or even seminal emissions on the slightest occasion, as on gazing at an attractive woman or in social intercourse with her, or in the presence of works of art representing naked figures. Nyström has had the opportunity of investigating and recording ninety cases of persons who have presented these and similar symptoms as the result, he believes, of sexual abstinence. He has published some of these cases (_Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft_, Oct., 1908), but it may be added that Rohleder ("Die Abstinentia Sexualis," ib., Nov., 1908) has criticized these cases, and doubts whether any of them are conclusive. Rohleder believes that the bad results of sexual abstinence are never permanent, and also that no anatomically pathological states (such as orchitis) can be thereby produced. But he considers, nevertheless, that even incomplete and temporary sexual abstinence may produce fairly serious results, and especially neurasthenic disturbances of various kinds, such as nervous irritability, anxiety, depression, disinclination for work; also diurnal emissions, premature ejaculations, and even a state approaching satyriasis; and in women hysteria, hystero-epilepsy, and nymphomaniacal manifestations; all these symptoms may, however, he believes, be cured when the abstinence ceases.
Many advocates of sexual abstinence have attached importance to the fact that men of great genius have apparently been completely continent throughout life. This is certainly true (see _ante_, p. 173). But this fact can scarcely be invoked as an argument in favor of the advantages of sexual abstinence among the ordinary population. J.F. Scott selects Jesus, Newton, Beethoven, and Kant as "men of vigor and mental acumen who have lived chastely as bachelors." It cannot, however, be said that Dr. Scott has been happy in the four figures whom he has been able to select from the whole history of human genius as examples of life-long sexual abstinence. We know little with absolute certainty of Jesus, and even if we reject the diagnosis which Professor Binet-Sanglé (in his _Folie de Jesus_) has built up from a minute study of the Gospels, there are many reasons why we should refrain from emphasizing the example of his sexual abstinence; Newton, apart from his stupendous genius in a special field, was an incomplete and unsatisfactory human being who ultimately reached a condition very like insanity; Beethoven was a thoroughly morbid and diseased man, who led an intensely unhappy existence; Kant, from first to last, was a feeble valetudinarian. It would probably be difficult to find a healthy normal man who would voluntarily accept the life led by any of these four, even as the price of