ACTION OF THE MALE. 691 



Man is prompted by a powerful Instinctive desire, which he shares with the 

 lower animals. This Instinct, like the others formerly alluded to ( 428 

 430), is excited by sensations ; and these may either originate in the sexual 

 organs themselves, or may be excited through the organs of special sensation. 

 Thus in Man it is most powerfully aroused by impressions conveyed through 

 the sight or the touch: in many other animals, the auditory and olfactive organs 

 communicate impressions which have an equal power ; and it is not impro- 

 bable that, in certain morbidly-excited states of feeling, the same may be the 

 case in ourselves. That local impressions have also a very powerful effect in 

 exciting sexual desire, must have been within the experience of almost every 

 one ; the fact is most remarkable, however, in cases of Satyriasis, which dis- 

 ease is generally found to be connected with some obvious cause of irritation 

 of the generative system, such as pruritus, active congestion, &c. That some 

 part of the Encephalon is the seat of this as of other instinctive propensities, 

 appears from the considerations formerly adduced; but that the Cerebellum 

 is the part in which this function is specially located, cannot be regarded as 

 by any means sufficiently proved ( 466 470). The instinct, when once 

 aroused (even though very obscurely felt), acts upon the mental faculties and 

 moral feelings; and thus becomes the source, though almost unconsciously so 

 to the individual, of the tendency to form that kind of attachment towards one 

 of the opposite sex, which is known as love. This tendency cannot be re- 

 garded as a simple passion or emotion, since it is the result of the combined 

 operations of the reason, the imagination, and the moral feelings ; and it is in 

 the engraftment (so to speak) of the psychical attachment, upon the mere 

 corporeal instinct, that a difference exists between the sexual relations of Man 

 and those of the lower animals. In proportion as the Human being makes 

 the temporary gratification of the mere sexual appetite his chief object, and 

 overlooks the happiness arising from spiritual communion, which is not only 

 purer but more permanent, and of which a renewal may be anticipated in 

 another world, does he degrade himself to the level of the brutes that perish. 

 Yet how lamentably frequent is this degradation ! 



904. When impelled by sexual excitement, the Male seeks intercourse with 

 the Female, the erectile tissue of the genital organs becomes turgid with blood 

 ( 748), and the surface acquires a much-increased sensibility ; this is espe- 

 cially acute in the Glans penis. By the friction of the Glans against the rugous 

 walls of the Vagina, the excitement is increased ; and the impression which 

 is thus produced at last becomes so strong, that it produces, through the 

 medium of the Spinal Cord, a reflex contraction of the muscles which sur- 

 round the Vesiculae Seminales ( 393). These receptacles discharge their 

 contents (partly consisting of semen and partly of a secretion of their own) 

 into the Urethra ; and from this they are expelled with some degree of force, 

 and with a kind of convulsive action, by its own Compressor muscles. Now 

 although the sensations concerned in this act are ordinarily most acutely plea- 

 surable, there appears sufficient evidence that they are by no means essential to 

 its performance ; and that the impression which is conveyed to the Spinal Cord 

 need not give rise to a sensation, in order to produce the reflex contraction of 

 the Ejaculator muscles ( 372). The high degree of nervous excitement 

 which the act of coition involves, produces a subsequent depression of corre- 

 sponding amount; and the too frequent repetition of it is productive of conse- 

 quences very injurious to the general health. This is still more the case with 

 the solitary indulgence, which (it is to be feared) is practised by too many 

 youths ; for this, substituting an unnatural degree of one kind of excitement, 

 for that which is wanting in another, cannot but be still more trying to the 

 bodily powers. The secretion of seminal fluid being, like other secretions, 

 very much under the control of the nervous system, will be increased by the 



