[340] Thus, Bechterew ("La Phobie du Regard,” Archives de Neurologie, July, 1905) considers that masturbation plays a large part in producing the morbid fear of the eyes of others.

[341] It is especially an undesirable tendency of masturbation, that it deadens the need for affection, and merely eludes, instead of satisfying, the sexual impulse.  “Masturbation,” as Godfrey well says (The Science of Sex, p. 178), “though a manifestation of sexual activity, is not a sexual act in the higher, or even in the real fundamental sense.  For sex implies duality, a characteristic to which masturbation can plainly lay no claim.  The physical, moral, and mental reciprocity which gives stability and beauty to a normal sexual intimacy, are as foreign to the masturbator as to the celibate.  In a sense, therefore, masturbation is as complete a negative of the sexual life as chastity itself.  It is, therefore, an evasion of, not an answer to, the sexual problem; and it will ever remain so, no matter how surely we may be convinced of its physical harmlessness.”

[342] “I learnt that dangerous supplement,” Rousseau tells us (Part I, Bk.  III), “which deceives Nature.  This vice, which bashfulness and timidity find so convenient, has, moreover, a great attraction for lively imaginations, for it enables them to do what they will, so to speak, with the whole fair sex, and to enjoy at pleasure the beauty who attracts them, without having obtained her consent.”

[343] “Ich hatte sie wirklich verloren, und die Tollheit, mit der ich meinen Fehler an mir selbst raechte, indem ich auf mancherlei unsinnige Weise in meine physische Natur sturmte, um der sittlichen etwas zu Leide zu thun, hat sehr viel zu den koerperlichen Uebeln beigetragen, unter denen ich einige der besten Jahre meines Lebens verlor; ja ich waere vielleicht an diesem Verlust vollig zu Grunde gegangen, haette sich hier nicht das poetische Talent mit seinen Heilkraften besonders huelfreich erwiesen.”  This is scarcely conclusive, and it may be added that there were many reasons why Goethe should have suffered physically at this time, quite apart from masturbation.  See, e.g., Bielschowsky, Life of Goethe, vol. i, p. 88.

[344] Les Obsessions, vol. ii, p. 136.

[345] A somewhat similar classification has already been made by Max Dessoir, who points out that we must distinguish between onanists aus Noth, and onanists aus Leidenschaft, the latter group alone being of really serious importance.  The classification of Dallemagne is also somewhat similar; he distinguishes onanie par impulsion, occurring in mental degeneration and in persons of inferior intelligence, from onanie par evocation ou obsession.