But the most striking fact in the state of excitement is the development of a special sense, the _venereal_ sense. This fact characterizes this state and it effaces the others to such an extent that it seems to form it alone. We shall not attempt to describe the genital sense: a sense cannot be described. We may however ask what is required? Even as hunger impels to eat and thirst to drink, this sense impels to the act of venery. It is the bond which brings the two sexes toward each other, which unites them and which makes, in the words of the disciples of a new belief, a perfect individual of the male and female. This sense may be only feebly excited, and then may have only a moderate degree of power. But when it is exalted, the chain with which it binds the free will is of incalculable power. The male dreams of the female: the latter of the male. One of the opposite sex is continually present to the mind and eyes and imagination. Individuals and forms which at other times appear by no means remarkable, now seem perfect and excite transports of admiration. Riches and honors are no longer esteemed, and even life itself is considered as not worth possessing. All necessities have disappeared before one only. Hunger and thirst are no longer felt. In fact it is a state of delirium. All the senses are concentrated in one: it commands them and receives from them, like a blind master, all the illusions which they present to it: and then fatigued by this violent state and exhausted by its excess, even when not satisfied, it is as it were extinguished. Such is the power of the genital organs, those organs which are abused by the onanist. Who then can question the physical evils with which its abuse may be attended.
§ 3. POWER OF THE GENITAL ORGANS CONSIDERED IN A STATE OF ACTION.
If the individual either by legitimate modes or otherwise, wishes to satisfy his desires, the state of excitement becomes changed to one of action, and the genital organs then arrive at their greatest degree of power. All parts of the genital system are interested, and combine their actions: the testes prepare the semen: the excretory ducts convey it: the prostrate gland and the muciparous follicles secrete their special humours, and the mucous fluids flow to the sexual parts. The erectile tissue, which forms the whole of the glans, the cavernous bodies, the clitoris, and most of the external and internal labia, the vagina &c., solicits to itself and retains the blood, becomes swelled by as much as it can contain, hardens and enlarges to the utmost of its capacity. At the same time the genital sense passes rapidly through all the degrees of excitement: and finally arrives at that point beyond which it cannot extend: every muscle, every mature fibre in the genital system is then convulsed: the seminal vesicles, the muscles surrounding the urethra and those which are attached to the anus contract with violence, and the semen, the loss of which causes so much exhaustion even when discharged involuntarily, is convulsively expelled.