CHAPTER II.

ON SELF-POLLUTION, ITS FRIGHTFUL AND DESTRUCTIVE CONSEQUENCES IN MAN AND WOMAN.

SELF-POLLUTION is that unnatural practice by which persons of either sex may defile their own bodies without the assistance of others, whilst yielding to filthy imaginations they endeavour to imitate and procure to themselves that sensation which God has ordained to attend the carnal commerce of the two sexes for the continuance of our species. This destructive habit, as the most frequent cause of impotency and sterility, or barrenness, is usually denominated Onanism. It may be defined to be the discharge of the seminal fluid artificially excited from an unnatural stimulus; the habit ascribed by poets to

"The solitary monk, recluse, obscene,”

and of those who in the ardour of inconsiderate and thoughtless youth are unfortunately subjected to the control of passion and imagination, rather than reason and duty. It were well if the evil pertained only to youth, for it must be owned that such is the force of this depraved and demoralizing habit, that it is frequently found to be indulged, at an age when usually the sober and mature judgment may be expected to be

in vigorous activity. This destructive and pernicious vice, is alluded to in the 38th chapter, 10th verse of Genesis, as the sin of Onan, (whence its name) and the revolting record is placed there, doubtlessly, for our warning, and as an indication of the abhorrence of that pure and holy Being for this unnatural sin. Amidst the most important actions of life and nature, there cannot possibly be any passion more appalling than that which arises from self-pollution, a passion fraught with the most destructive and frightful consequences, dreadful in imagination and in its exercise fatal to all present as well as future happiness, seeing that it lords itself over every virtue, and so tyrannic is its sway that becoming utterly master of all the nobler energies of life, the solitary victim once devoted to this abyss laments too late the social compact of reason and sensibility as destroyed; all power evaporates and nerveless chilling apathy succeeds. Of all the voluptuous and dangerous pleasures that strew the path from youth to manhood, none are so mischievous as the baneful habits of Onanism. It unhappily offers two powerful inducements, it can be practised in seclusion, and its effects on the health and personal appearance are not so sudden and so immediately apparent as the paleness, for instance, which succeeds a night of drunken and sleepless revelry. For a time the solitary vicious gratification can be concealed. The evil consequences are not known, and consequently not anticipated, or if there be some distant foreboding, present excitement banishes the thought and fear of future suffering. It is a practice which once indulged in, it is most difficult 10 abandon, it grows with our growth, and becomes confirmed at the expense of our strength. The miseral·le sufferer is not sensible, it may be, for a long time, of the

slow yet certain change that is passing over him, the debility that is perceptible to others, and his paleness, have crept over him so insidiously, no one part of the body feels weakened more than another; as to the mind, the case is somewhat different, so it is, that a failure in the power of memory is sometimes the earliest indication of mischief.

The spell-bound fascination of this unfortunate delusion most commonly assumes its sway at a very early period; the secret is frequently propagated in whispers, or by example from boy to boy at school, where children are left in a measure open to the admission of sights and sounds over which the preceptor can only exercise a limited control. There, left to intermix with other lads more precocious than themselves, or exposed to the numerous snares and temptations presented on every side in all large cities, it requires a more than ordinary amount of watchfulness on the part of those PARENTS and GUARDIANS Who have the supervision of youth, to prevent the introduction, or to eradicate and avert the consequences of this distressful and abominable practice. Under such circumstances, the secret of illusory gratification is soon discovered, a new source of vivid and exquisite sensual enjoyment is opened to the ardent imagination; it is felt to be easily and secretly practicable, and intensely pleasurable. Upon youth this destructive habit commits the most unrestricted ravages, and it will be obvious that inasmuch as it strikes at the very root of society, at the increase and propagation of the human race, by enervating and debilitating the springs of life; no language can be sufficiently strong in reprobation of the national, social, and individual miseries resulting from a practice which is not more hurtful and odious among

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men than it is detestable in the sight of God. It is at that early period, when passion predominates, unchecked by the immature reasoning faculty, that the heedless youth runs the greatest risk of contamination. If at this excitable age, the idea be presented, or the example afforded, if the indelicate touches of strange hands disclose to the young subject what may at this time be considered a sixth and new sense, there takes place such a strange and forced, and unnatural, as well as premature excitement of the genital organs, that, led on by the delusive pleasure, the poor votary of empty and selfish gratification yields himself an easy unresisting prey to a species of criminality, which if not checked and broken, is certain to draw down upon him either premature decay and an early grave, or that lingering hopeless hatred of existence, more dreadful than utter extinction itself.

It will be well to place before the reader in as brief a form as is consistent with a literal outline of the facts, a summary of the consequences, physical as well as mental, resulting from the practice of self-pollution.

And these are twofold, for such is the mysterious nature of the union, such the relation and mutual dependance existing between mind and body, between the purely corporeal and the mental portions of our being, that any physically bad habit, while it undermines the bodily health, produces a corresponding depression upon the animal spirits; the brain and nervous system, as the organs of the intellectual principle, become preternaturally weakened and diseased, until one common ruin involves both alike in destruction. If self-pollution has unhappily gained the mastery over the young spirit, if it become an admitted habit, the energies of the body, which ought naturally to be directed to the purposes of nourishment

and growth, are employed in the reparation of a criminal loss, and the purposes of natural sustenance, as well as the support of the bodily functions, are altogether superseded, or at least imperfectly provided for. An idea may be formed of the nature of this loss, and of the sacred guard which health imposes upon its due preservation, by observing the consequences resulting from its unnecessary and too frequent emission. Physicians of all ages have unanimously been of opinion, that the loss of an ounce of this humour by the unnatural act of selfpollution, would weaken more than that of forty ounces of blood. An idea may be formed of its importance, not merely for the direct end it was designed to fulfil in the process of generation, but for other purposes, more evident when retained than in its expulsion; note for instance, the changes which take place in the animal economy as soon as this valuable fluid begins to be seereted; the voice, the features change, the beard grows, the genitals become covered with hair, the whole body assumes a more rotund and manly appearance, the muscular system acquiring that firmness and solidity which chiefly marks the distinction between man and woman.

So we know well that the loss of the testicles, or any diseases that retards their natural secretion is followed by a cessation of those actions peculiar to early manhood, the voice again becoming childish and the hair soft and feminine. Who then can doubt of the deep importance of this fluid in the animal economy, or feel the slightest wonder at the amount of those evils its imprudent and unnecessary evacuation is sure to entail upon those who are addicted to this propensity? When this is the case, the mind and the body, sympathising together, experience a complete deterioration of their