Views Held on This Point--The Symptoms and Results of Masturbation--Its
Alleged Influence in Causing Eye Disorders--Its Relation to Insanity and
Nervous Disorders--The Evil Effects of Masturbation Usually Occur on the
Basis of a Congenitally Morbid Nervous System--Neurasthenia Probably the
Commonest Accompaniment of Excessive Masturbation--Precocious Masturbation
Tends to Produce Aversion to Coitus--Psychic Results of Habitual
Masturbation--Masturbation in Men of Genius--Masturbation as a Nervous
Sedative--Typical Cases--The Greek Attitude toward Masturbation--Attitude
of the Catholic Theologians--The Mohammedan Attitude--The Modern
Scientific Attitude--In What Sense is Masturbation Normal?--The Immense
Part in Life Played by Transmuted Auto-erotic Phenomena.

The foregoing sketch will serve to show how vast is the field of life--of
normal and not merely abnormal life--more or less infused by auto-erotic
phenomena. If, however, we proceed to investigate precisely the exact
extent, degree, and significance of such phenomena, we are met by many
difficulties. We find, indeed, that no attempts have been made to study
auto-erotic phenomena, except as regards the group--a somewhat artificial
group, as I have already tried to show--collected under the term
"masturbation" while even here such attempts have only been made among
abnormal classes of people, or have been conducted in a manner scarcely
likely to yield reliable results.[289] Still there is a certain
significance in the more careful investigations which have been made to
ascertain the precise frequency of masturbation.

Berger, an experienced specialist in nervous diseases, concluded, in his
_Vorlesungen_, that 99 per cent. of young men and women masturbate
occasionally, while the hundredth conceals the truth;[290] and Hermann
Cohn appears to accept this statement as generally true in Germany. So
high an estimate has, of course, been called in question, and, since it
appears to rest on no basis of careful investigation, we need not
seriously consider it. It is useless to argue on suppositions; we must
cling to our definite evidence, even though it yields figures which are
probably below the mark. Rohleder considers that during adolescence at
least 95 per cent. of both sexes masturbate, but his figures are not
founded on precise investigation.[291] Julian Marcuse, on the basis of his
own statistics, concludes that 92 per cent. male individuals have to some
extent mas