d an important portion of the auto-erotic field, a
portion which many people are alone inclined to consider normal: sexual
orgasm during sleep. That under conditions of sexual abstinence in healthy
individuals there must inevitably be some auto-erotic manifestations
during waking life, a careful study of the facts compels us to believe.
There can be no doubt, also, that, under the same conditions, the
occurrence of the complete orgasm during sleep with, in men, seminal
emissions, is altogether normal. Even Zeus himself, as Pausanias has
recorded, was liable to such accidents: a statement which, at all events,
shows that to the Greek mind there was nothing derogatory in such an
occurrence.[231] The Jews, however, regarded it as an impurity,[232] and
the same idea was transmitted to the Christian church and embodied in the
word _pollutio_, by which the phenomenon was designated in ecclesiastical
phraseology.[233] According to Billuart and other theologians, pollution
in sleep is not sin, unless voluntarily caused; if, however, it begins in
sleep, and is completed in the half-waking state, with a sense of
pleasure, it is a venial sin. But it seems allowable to permit a nocturnal
pollution to complete itself on awaking, if it occurs without intention;
and St. Thomas even says "_Si pollutio placeat ut naturae exoneratio vel
alleviatio peccatum non creditur_."

Notwithstanding the fair and logical position of the more
distinguished Latin theologians, there has certainly been a
widely prevalent belief in Catholic countries that pollution
during sleep is a sin. In the "Parson's Tale," Chaucer makes the
parson say: "Another sin appertaineth to lechery that cometh in
sleeping; and the sin cometh oft to them that be maidens, and eke
to them that be corrupt; and this sin men clepe pollution, that
cometh in four manners;" these four manners being (1) languishing
of body from rank and abundant humors, (2) infirmity, (3) surfeit
of meat and drink, and (4) villainous thoughts. Four hundred
years later, Madame Roland, in her _Memoires Particulieres_,
presented a vivid picture of the anguish produced in an innocent
girl's mind by the notion of the sinfulness of erotic dreams. She
menstruated first at the age of 14. "Before this," she writes, "I
had sometimes been awakened from the deepest sleep in a
surprising manner. Imagination played no part; I exercised it on
too man