ACTION OF THE MALE. 589 



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 improba- 

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

 in ourselves. That local impressions have also very powerful effect in exciting 

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

 fact is most remarkable, hotvever, in cases of Satyriasis, which disease is gene- 

 rally found to be connected with some obvious cause of irritation of the gene- 

 rative 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 ( 274 8). 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 regarded 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 spirtual 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 ! 



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

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

 ( 519), 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 surround 

 the Vesicula3 Seminales ( 203). 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 pleasureable, 

 there appears sufficient evidence that they-are by no means essential to its per- 

 formance; 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 ( 182). The high degree of nervous excitement 

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

 responding amount ; and the too frequent repetition of it is productive of con^ 

 sequences 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 

 continual direction of the mind towards objects which awaken the sexual pro- 

 pensity ( 426, note) ; and thus, if intercourse be very frequent, a much larger 

 quantity will altogether be produced, although the amount emitted at each 

 period will be less. The formation of the secretion seems of itself to be a 

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