t by my attempt at abstinence I had only exchanged control for
uncontrol, and reverted to my old habits of relief, with the same
good results as before. The whole trouble subsided and I got
better at once. (The orgasm during sleep continued, and occurs
about once a fortnight; it is increased by change of air,
especially at the seaside, when it may occur on two or three
nights running.) I decided that, for the proper control of my
single life, relief was normal and right. It would be very
difficult for anyone to demonstrate the contrary to me. My aim
has always been to keep myself in the best condition of physical
and mental balance that a single person is capable of."

There is some interest in briefly reviewing the remarkable transformations
in the attitude toward masturbation from Greek times down to our own day.
The Greeks treated masturbation with little opprobrium. At the worst they
regarded it as unmanly, and Aristophanes, in various passages, connects
the practice with women, children, slaves, and feeble old men. AEschines
seems to have publicly brought it as a charge against Demosthenes that he
had practiced masturbation, though, on the other hand, Plutarch tells us
that Diogenes--described by Zeller, the historian of Greek philosophy, as
"the most typical figure of ancient Greece"--was praised by Chrysippus,
the famous philosopher, for masturbating in the market-place. The more
strenuous Romans, at all events as exemplified by Juvenal and Martial,
condemned masturbation more vigorously.[347] Aretaeus, without alluding to
masturbation, dwells on the tonic effects of retaining the semen; but, on
the other hand, Galen regarded the retention of semen as injurious, and
advocated its frequent expulsion, a point of view which tended to justify
masturbation. In classical days, doubtless, masturbation and all other
forms of the auto-erotic impulse were comparatively rare. So much scope
was allowed in early adult age for homosexual and later for heterosexual
relationships that any excessive or morbid development of solitary
self-indulgence could seldom occur. The case was altered when Christian
ideals became prominent. Christian morality strongly proscribed sexual
relationships except under certain specified conditions. It is true that
Christianity discouraged all sexual manifestations, and that therefore its
ban fell equally on masturbation, but, obviously, masturbation lay at the