e. Rohleder has met with a few cases in which there
seemed to him no escape from the conclusion that sexual abstinence
existed, but in all of these he subsequently found that he was mistaken,
usually owing to the practice of masturbation, which he believes to be
extremely common and very frequently accompanied by a persistent attempt
to deceive the physician concerning its existence. The only kind of
"sexual abstinence" that exists is a partial and temporary abstinence.
Instead of saying, as some say, "Permanent abstinence is unnatural and
cannot exist without physical and mental injury," we ought to say,
Rohleder believes, "Permanent abstinence is unnatural and has never
existed."

It is impossible not to feel as we contemplate this chaotic mass of
opinions, that the whole discussion is revolving round a purely negative
idea, and that fundamental fact is responsible for what at first seem to
be startling conflicts of statement. If indeed we were to eliminate what
is commonly regarded as the religious and moral aspect of the matter--an
aspect, be it remembered, which has no bearing on the essential natural
facts of the question--we cannot fail to perceive that these ostentatious
differences of conviction would be reduced within very narrow and trifling
limits.

We cannot strictly coordinate the impulse of reproduction with the impulse
of nutrition. There are very important differences between them, more
especially the fundamental difference that while the satisfaction of the
one impulse is absolutely necessary both to the life of the individual and
of the race, the satisfaction of the other is absolutely necessary only to
the life of the race. But when we reduce this question to one of "sexual
abstinence" we are obviously placing it on the same basis as that of
abstinence from food, that is to say at the very opposite pole to which we
place it when (as in the previous chapter) we consider it from the point
of view of asceticism and chastity. It thus comes about that on this
negative basis there really is an interesting analogy between nutritive
abstinence, though necessarily only maintained incompletely and for a
short time, and sexual abstinence, maintained more completely and for a
longer time. A patient of Janet's seems to bring out clearly this
resemblance. Nadia, whom Janet was able to study during five years, was a
young woman of twenty-seven, healthy and intelligent, not suffering from
hysteria nor from anorexia