Billy men, who gain their information from the evil publications of charlatans who are wholly mercenary in their aims, wrongly attribute these losses to some mischief in their generative functions. The emissions occur with varying frequency in different men, and in the same man at different times. If one takes little exercise, oversleeps, lives on a rich diet, uses tea, coffee, or tobacco to excess, and stimulates his mind with erotic fancies and pursuits, he will probably experience them with more frequency than the active man who directs his energies more to his brain and muscles than to his sensual nature.
According to the trend of the thoughts and the mode of life the "pollutions" may in health occur as frequently as once in every ten or fourteen days, or as seldom as once in several weeks, or very rarely in those who are leading excessively active lives. To the continent man these nocturnal emissions afford a safeguard against sexual, moral and intellectual turbulence. It may frankly be admitted that one's amorous desires increase with the accumulation of semen, so that it is more difficult at these times to remain chaste in thought and action; but with the recurrence of this function of ejaculation, a feeling of physiological ease follows. There need be no shame or regret over this phenomenon, since it is almost as much a man's nature to have an occasional emission of semen as it is a woman's function to menstruate. It is a natural substitute for copulation, and a characteristic sign that the individual still retains the health and power to procreate, though potency may remain after emissions have ceased.
After maturity is reached a man begins to feel longingc for a wife, and home and children, which sexual inclinations are quite different from those of the romantic youth or voluptuary. Unless a stern duty compel him to forego the delights of marriage, one should shape and subordinate hia ambition toward the accomplishment of this natural and established custom at some day, and continually seek to preserve his body and character fit to perform the functions of a lover, husband, father, and good citizen. To attain this lofty position it is necessary for him to retrench his pleasures, both for his own welfare and for the sake of his wife, children and society; and he can lead a perfectly continent life with the assurance that his procreative powers will not the earlier wane on that account.
Men of the greatest force are to day living chastely as bachelors. And as eminent examples of such lives may be mentioned the names of men of such vigor and mental acumen as Sir Isaac Newton, Beethoven, Kant, and Jesus of Nazareth.
A man's personal welfare, apart from all considerations of a loftier nature, is certainly not dependent on his sexual gratification. In fact, the proper subjugation of the sexual impulses, and the conservation of the complex seminal fluid, with its wonderfully invigorating influence, develop all that is best and noblest in men; for love's impulse has its very foundation in the sexual domain. On the contrary, the lusting man, assuming a far greater freedom than the married man, no sooner experiences the effects of an accumulation of semen than he hastens to rid himself of it, with a corresponding loss of healthy animation. Such a course is unphysiological, and prevents the development of the ideal athletic or mental type of manliness.
This, as might be anticipated, is shown by the observed results. A character which is chaste and pure continually prefers higher thoughts to lower thoughts, and manliness to unmanliness; and if even the lesser degrees of coarseness and lewdness are harbored in the intellect, or if it be stimulated by erotic fancies and associations, its owner will fall short of being a noble man. Invariably the character of an incontinent man is degenerated; and if he is unregenerate, it progressively continues to degenerate. One cannot be a libertine or fornicator without telling and hearing lies, nor aseociate in levity with coarse and diseased men and women without contamination; nor is there any possible way in which one can gratify his sexual passions extra matrimo nially, and not come off with a character smirched and soiled