Onanism, or, A treatise upon the disorders produced by masturbation, or, the dangerous effects of secret and excessive venery / By M. Tissot ; translated from the last Paris edition, by A. Hume.

  • Tissot, S. A. D. (Samuel Auguste David), 1728-1797.
Date:
1781
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Onanism, or, A treatise upon the disorders produced by masturbation, or, the dangerous effects of secret and excessive venery / By M. Tissot ; translated from the last Paris edition, by A. Hume. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    54 fomc places arofe, that debatichery with women îs looked upon only as a habit : the inoft criminal in this refpect make no myilcry of it, and imagine it draws‘upon them no fort of contempt. Where is the mallurbator who dares acknowledge his infamy ? And lliould not this neecdity of hiding the deeds in m)'lT:ic obfeurity be a conviction of the criminality of thefe a£ls ? How many are there that have perilh- ■ed becaufe they did not dr.re reveal the caufe of their illnefs ? \Vc read in fcveral letters in Onanla^ ‘ I ‘ would rather die than ajipear before you after fuch ‘ an acknowledgment.’ We are much more inclin- ed, and indeed ought to be, to apologize for him, who, fcduced by that inclination which nature has engraved in all our hearts, and which is inllrumen- tal in preferving our fpecies, as he is no farther cul- pabable than as he gives too unbounded a fcope to his inclinations ; fuch a one, I fay, is more juftifiablc than him who fins by violating all laws, trampling upon all the fentiments and defigns of nature. Con- feious how horrible he muft appear to fociety when <lifcovcred, he is incefiantly tortured with the idea. In a letter which one of thefe criminals wrote to me, and which I quoted above, I find this pafiage : ‘ iMe- * thinks that every one reads in my countenance the * infamous caufe of my diforder ; and this idea makes * all company infupportable to me.’ They are feiz- cd with melancholy and defpair, examples of which have already been given in the fourth feCVion of this work : and they are fubject to all the diforders which are brought on by intenfe melancholy, and with this additional aggravation, that they have no grounds for juflification, no profpeCt of confolation. And what are