is a necessity.  Erb’s opinion is regarded by Jacobsohn as standing alone; he placed the age below which abstinence is harmless at twenty; after that age he regarded it as injurious to health, seriously impeding work and capacity, while in neurotic persons it leads to still more serious results.  Jacobsohn concludes that the general opinion of those answering the inquiry may thus be expressed:  “Youth should be abstinent.  Abstinence can in no way injure them; on the contrary, it is beneficial.  If our young people will remain abstinent and avoid extra-conjugal intercourse they will maintain a high ideal of love and preserve themselves from venereal diseases.”

The harmlessness of sexual abstinence was likewise affirmed in America in a resolution passed by the American Medical Association in 1906.  The proposition thus formally accepted was thus worded:  “Continence is not incompatible with health.”  It ought to be generally realized that abstract propositions of this kind are worthless, because they mean nothing.  Every sane person, when confronted by the demand to boldly affirm or deny the proposition, “Continence is not incompatible with health,” is bound to affirm it.  He might firmly believe that continence is incompatible with the health of most people, and that prolonged continence is incompatible with anyone’s health, and yet, if he is to be honest in the use of language, it would be impossible for him to deny the vague and abstract proposition that “Continence is not incompatible with health.”  Such propositions are therefore not only without value, but actually misleading.

It is obvious that the more extreme and unqualified opinions in favor of sexual abstinence are based not on medical, but on what the writers regard as moral considerations.  Moreover, as the same writers are usually equally emphatic in regard to the advantages of sexual intercourse in marriage, it is clear that they have committed themselves to a contradiction.  The same act, as Naecke rightly points out, cannot become good or bad according as it is performed in or out of marriage.  There is no magic efficacy in a few words pronounced by a priest or a government official.

Remondino (loc. cit.) remarks that the authorities who have committed themselves to declarations in favor of the unconditional advantages of sexual abstinence tend to fall into three errors:  (1) they generalize unduly, instead of considering each case individually, on its own merits; (2) they fail to realize that human nature is influenced by highly mixed and complex motives and cannot be assumed to be amenable only to motives of abstract morality; (3) they ignore the great army of masturbators and sexual perverts who make no complaint of sexual suffering, but by maintaining a rigid sexual abstinence, so far as normal relationships are concerned, gradually drift into currents whence there is no return.

Between those who unconditionally affirm or deny the