Page:A Treatise on the Diseases produced by Onanism, Masturbation, Self-pollution, and other excesses.djvu/22

 Rh has not. His mind, like his body and heart, remains a perfect waste. His intelligence is but moderate and he is never known to conceive or execute great ideas. This picture is not drawn from the imagination; it is the result of long continued observations at all periods, on all places, and upon all kinds of eunuchs. One of them observed by M. Bedor embodied in himself the principal features of this picture. He was an eunuch from birth who had become a conscript. His appearance was humble and languishing; his eyes were downcast and averted; he was very timid and cowardly, was afraid of dead bodies, and of darkness. He admitted that he had never been attached even to any member of his family: but he was also incapable of dislike. He was not pleased with musick, and had no idea of singing: finally he was insensible to all enjoyment. He did not however complain of his situation. His intelligence was very slight, his conversation was obscure and incorrect, and he was so incapable of being instructed that although he had lived in the barracks a year he had none of the moral habits of the soldier. (Journal de med. chir. et phar. vol. xxv. p. 75.)

Such is the eunuch. The operator in mutilating him mutilated his heart, his senses, his mind. The development of the moral and intellectual faculties then like that of the body is connected with the existence of the genital organs. Deprive a child of a limb of his four limbs, that is of the half at least of his frame, and he will continue to be developed, the same as if no part had been taken from him. But take away the testicles, and all his tissues, all his faculties will bear indelible marks of this mutilation. These organs alone then have much more power than the four extremities. It is with these, with this power, that the onanist trifles from childhood, without hesitation and without moderation. Is it necessary now to follow this train of reasoning to show that his course of conduct is dangerous? It is also to the influence exercised by the genital organs on other parts that the sexes owe their peculiar differences. Their