orm in adolescence," Venturi
continues, "masturbation has an almost hallucinatory character;
onanism at this period psychically approximates to the true
sexual act, and passes insensibly into it. If, however, continued
on into adult age, it becomes morbid, passing into erotic
fetichism; what in the inexperienced youth is the natural
auxiliary and stimulus to imagination, in the degenerate onanist
of adult age is a sign of arrested development. Thus, onanism,"
the author concludes, "is not always a vice such as is fiercely
combated by educators and moralists. It is the natural transition
by which we reach the warm and generous love of youth, and, in
natural succession to this, the tranquil, positive, matrimonial
love of the mature man." (Silvio Venturi, _Le Degenerazioni
Psico-sessuale_, 1892, pp. 6-9.)

It may be questioned whether this view is acceptable even for the
warm climate of the south of Europe, where the impulses of
sexuality are undoubtedly precocious. It is certainly not in
harmony with general experience and opinion in the north; this is
well expressed in the following passage by Edward Carpenter
(_International Journal of Ethics_, July, 1899): "After all,
purity (in the sense of continence) _is_ of the first importance
to boyhood. To prolong the period of continence in a boy's life
is to prolong the period of _growth_. This is a simple
physiological law, and a very obvious one; and, whatever other
things may be said in favor of purity, it remains, perhaps, the
most weighty. To introduce sensual and sexual habits--and one of
the worst of them is self-abuse--at an early age, is to arrest
growth, both physical and mental. And what is even more, it means
to arrest the capacity for affection. All experience shows that
the early outlet toward sex cheapens and weakens affectional
capacity."

I do not consider that we can decide the precise degree in which
masturbation may fairly be called normal so long as we take masturbation
by itself. We are thus, in conclusion, brought back to the point which I
sought to emphasize at the outset: masturbation belongs to a group of
auto-erotic phenomena. From one point of view it may be said that all
auto-erotic phenomena are unnatural, since the natural aim of the sexual
impulse is sexual conjunction, and all exercise of that impulse outside
such conjuncti