[229] Uranisme, p. 125.

[230] The acute Anstie remarked, more than thirty years ago, in his work on Neuralgia:  “It is a comparatively frequent thing to see an unsocial, solitary life (leading to the habit of masturbation) joined with the bad influence of an unhealthy ambition, prompting to premature and false work in literature and art.”  From the literary side, M. Leon Bazalgette has dealt with the tendency of much modern literature to devote itself to what he calls “mental onanism,” of which the probable counterpart, he seems to hint, is a physical process of auto-erotism. (Leon Bazalgette, “L’onanisme considere comme principe createur en art,” L’Esprit Nouveau, 1898.)

[231] Pausanias, Achaia, Chapter XVII.  The ancient Babylonians believed in a certain “maid of the night,” who appeared to men in sleep and roused without satisfying their passions. (Jastrow, Religion of Babylonia, p. 262.) This succubus was the Assyrian Liler, connected with the Hebrew Lilith.  There was a corresponding incubus, “the little night man,” who had nocturnal intercourse with women. (Cf.  Ploss, Das Weib, 7th ed., pp. 521 et seq.) The succubus and the incubus (the latter being more common) were adopted by Christendom; St. Augustine (De Civitate Dei, Bk.  XV, Ch.  XXIII) said that the wicked assaults of sylvans and fauns, otherwise called incubi, on women, are so generally affirmed that it would be impudent to deny them.  Incubi flourished in mediaeval belief, and can scarcely, indeed, be said to be extinct even to-day.  They have been studied by many authors; see, e.g., Dufour, Histoire de la Prostitution, vol. v, Ch.  XXV, Saint-Andre, physician-in-ordinary to the French King, pointed out in 1725 that the incubus was a dream.  It may be added that the belief in the succubus and incubus appears to be widespread.  Thus, the West African Yorubas (according to A.B.  Ellis) believe that erotic dreams are due to the god Elegbra, who, either as a male or a female, consorts with men and women in sleep.

[232] “If any man’s seed of copulation go out from him, then he shall bathe all his flesh in water and be unclean until the even.  And every garment, and every skin, whereon is the seed of copulation, shall be washed with water and be unclean until the even.”  Leviticus, XV, v. 16-17.

[233] It should be added that the term pollutio also covers voluntary effusion of semen outside copulation. (Debreyne, Moechialogie, p. 8; for a full discussion of the opinions of theologians concerning nocturnal and diurnal pollutions, see the same author’s Essai sur la Theologie Morale, pp. 100-149.)

[234] Memoirs, translated by Bendyshe, p. 182.

[235] Sexual Impotence, p. 137.

[236] L’Hygiene Sexuelle, p. 169.

[237] Sexualleben und Nervenleiden, p. 164.

[238] I may here refer to the curious opinion expressed by Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, that, while the sexual impulse in man is usually relieved by seminal emissions during sleep, in women it is relieved by the occurrence of menstruation.  This latter statement is flagrantly at variance with the facts; but it may perhaps be quoted in support of the view expressed above as to the comparative rarity of sexual excitement during sleep in young girls.