n argument in
favor of the advantages of sexual abstinence among the ordinary
population. J.F. Scott selects Jesus, Newton, Beethoven, and Kant
as "men of vigor and mental acumen who have lived chastely as
bachelors." It cannot, however, be said that Dr. Scott has been
happy in the four figures whom he has been able to select from
the whole history of human genius as examples of life-long sexual
abstinence. We know little with absolute certainty of Jesus, and
even if we reject the diagnosis which Professor Binet-Sangle (in
his _Folie de Jesus_) has built up from a minute study of the
Gospels, there are many reasons why we should refrain from
emphasizing the example of his sexual abstinence; Newton, apart
from his stupendous genius in a special field, was an incomplete
and unsatisfactory human being who ultimately reached a condition
very like insanity; Beethoven was a thoroughly morbid and
diseased man, who led an intensely unhappy existence; Kant, from
first to last, was a feeble valetudinarian. It would probably be
difficult to find a healthy normal man who would voluntarily
accept the life led by any of these four, even as the price of
their fame. J.A. Godfrey (_Science of Sex_, pp. 139-147)
discusses at length the question whether sexual abstinence is
favorable to ordinary intellectual vigor, deciding that it is
not, and that we cannot argue from the occasional sexual
abstinence of men of genius, who are often abnormally
constituted, and physically below the average, to the normally
developed man. Sexual abstinence, it may be added, is by no means
always a favorable sign, even in men who stand intellectually
above the average. "I have not obtained the impression," remarks
Freud (_Sexual-Probleme_, March, 1908), "that sexual abstinence
is helpful to energetic and independent men of action or original
thinkers, to courageous liberators or reformers. The sexual
conduct of a man is often symbolic of his whole method of
reaction in the world. The man who energetically grasps the
object of his sexual desire may be trusted to show a similarly
relentless energy in the pursuit of other aims."

Many, though not all, who deny that prolonged sexual abstinence is
harmless, include women in this statement. There are some authorities
indeed who believe that, whether or not any conscious sexual de