Rousseau, in his _Confessions_,
admirably describes how his own solitary, timid, and imaginative life
found its chief sexual satisfaction in masturbation.[342] Gogol, the
great Russian novelist, masturbated to excess, and it has been suggested
that the dreamy melancholy thus induced was a factor in his success as a
novelist. Goethe, it has been asserted, at one time masturbated to excess;
I am not certain on what authority the statement is made, probably on a
passage in the seventh book of _Dichtung und Wahrheit_, in which,
describing his student-life at Leipzig, and his loss of Aennchen owing to
his neglect of her, he tells how he revenged that neglect on his own
physical nature by foolish practices from which he thinks he suffered for
a considerable period.[343] The great Scandinavian philosopher, Soeren
Kierkegaard, suffered severely, according to Rasmussen, from excessive
masturbation. That, at the present day, eminence in art, literature, and
other fields may be combined with the excessive practice of masturbation
is a fact of which I have unquestionable evidence.
I have the detailed history of a man of 30, of high ability in a
scientific direction, who, except during periods of mental
strain, has practiced masturbation nightly (though seldom more
than once a night) from early childhood, without any traceable
evil results, so far as his general health and energy are
concerned.
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