ACTON'S WISDOM
219
however fantastic its confusion of cause with effect, cannot be
written off as pure fantasy: it
is
based on observation. And there
can be little doubt that in this period of history we confront a
situation characterized not merely by extreme disturbance and guilt
over masturbation, and sexuality in general, but by the emergence
of those feelings into general organized consciousness in the form of
such beliefs.
Of all the thousand natural shocks which flesh is heir to,
masturbation seems the worst, and there is no doubt in Acton's
mind "that it
is
the cause of disease." Among the multitude of
afflictions that
it
can cause are impotence, consumption, curvature
of the spine, and of course insanity. He then quotes from a con–
temporary treatise on "an inquiry into a frequent cause of insanity
in young men" this description of certain inmates of an asylum for
the insane.
Engaged in no social diversion, the patients of this group
live alone in the midst of many. In their exercise they choose
the quietest and most unfrequented parts of the airing-grounds.
They join in no social conversation, nor enter with others into
any amusement. They walk alone, or they sit alone. 1£ engaged
in reading, they talk not to others of what they may have
read ; their desire apparently is, in the midst of numbers, to be
in solitude. They seek no social joys, nor is the wish for
fellowship evinced.
The pale complexion, the emaciated form, the slouching
gait, the clammy palm, the glassy or leaden eye, and the
averted gaze, indicate the lunatic victim to this vice.
Apathy, loss of memory, abeyance of concentrative power
and manifestation of mind generally, combined with loss of
self-reliance, and indisposition for or impulsiveness of action,
irritability of temper, and incoherence of language, are the
most characteristic mental phenomena of chronic dementia
resulting from masturbation in young men.
It might be difficult to find a more apt or prettier description
of the romantic artist: the Ancient Mariner, the poet of "Alastor,"
Endymion, anyone of Byron'S early heroes fit this bill of particulars.
This hardly indicates that these characters masturbated themselves into
insanity; it does serve to show, however, how in a single culture one
