Masturbation and Insanity: Henry Maudsley and theIdeology of Sexual Repression Arthur N. Gilbert Throughout the nineteenth century, auto-eroticism was viewed as a great evil, a threat to the individual and to society. At one time or another, nearly every disease which nineteenth-century doctors could not cure was blamed on self-abuse. Summing up the relationship between masturbation and ill- ness, French doctor Eugene Beckland wrote in 1842, "Many physicians of high authority have maintained that two-thirds of the diseases to which the human race is liable have had their origins in certain solitary practices • • • ." I As to the impact of masturbation on society, Dr. Reveille Parise observed in 1828, In my opinion, neither plague, nor war, nor small pox, nor similar diseases, have produced results so disastrous to humanity as the pernicous habit of onanism. It is the destroying element of civilized societies, which is constantly in action and gradually undermines the health of a nation. 2 Since 1953, when Rene Spitz published his important article on the sub- ject, a number of scholars have tried to explain the intense concern with masturbation in the nineteenth century. Spitz argued that the heightened in- terest in self-abuse reflected the shift to Protestant culture with its emphasis on individual responsibility for sin.] More recently, John and Robin Haller used similar arguments to explain it.4 Other writers such as E. H. Hare and Edward Shorter have argued that one reason why fear of masturbation in- creased was that people began indulging in the solitary vice to a greater ex- tent than ever before.' Men and women were masturbating more-and if IEugene Beckland, M.D. Physiological Mysteries and Revelations in Love. Courtship and Marriage (New York, 1842), p. 97. 'Quoted in Leopold Deslandes, M.D. A Treatise on the Diseases Produced by Onanism. Masturbation. and Self Pollution and Other Excesses (Boston, 1839), p. 8. The same quota- tion is in John Harvey Kellogg, M.D., Plain Facts for the Old and Young: Embracing the Natural History and Hygiene of Organic Life (Burlington, Iowa, 1888), and attributed to Dr. Adam Oarke. 'Rene A. Spitz, "Authority and Masturbation," Yearbook of Psychoanalysis (1953); p. 118. 'John and Robin Haller, The Physician and Sexuality in Victorian America (Urbana Illlinois, 1974), p. 234. 'E.H. Hare, "Masturbational Insanity: The History of an Idea," The Journal of Mental Science, 108 (1962): 1-25, and Edward Shorter, The Making of the Modern Family (New York, 1975). Masturbation and Insanity 269 they read medical journals on the subject-enjoying it less. Hare speculated that this was because of fear of venereal disease caused by intercourse, a great concern in the nineteenth century. Masturbation was safer. Shorter, who saw masturbation as part of a general increase in sexual appetite, as- serted that it was "unlikely that masturbation ... was practiced on a wide scale before the premarital sexual revolution."6 It is not likely that his- torians will uncover reliable data on incidence of self-abuse to prove or dis- prove this hypothesis. Another approach to anti-onanism examined the question with reference to the medical profession. Hare has argued that the conservatism of medical men and their refusal to test the onanist hypothesis accounts, at least in part, for their passing on misinformation. 7 I have argued elsewhere that "status anomaly" -the gap between prestige and skill level-resulted in a situation where doctors were driven to explain diseases of which they had inadequate knowledge in terms of the moral failings of their patients.' Recent efforts to explain anti-onanism have treated it as one aspect of a general fear of sexual excess of all kinds, and as an adjunct of middle class morality. Peter Cominos first suggested links between economic values and sexuality. The middle class moral code based on saving, thrift and parsi- moniousness was transferred to the sexual sphere. "A penny saved is a pen- ny earned" had a spermatic equivalent. Sperm retention became as im- portant as saving money for a proverbial rainy day. As Cominos put it, The economic virtues and vices-derivations of the quality inherent in the struc- ture and functioning of the economic system and vindicated by the political eco- nomists-included the sexual virtues and vices on continence and incontinence. Continence was good, attained by sublimation through industry.' Along similar lines, Stephen Kern, drawing on Freudian theories of anali- ty and parsimoniousness, commented that "childhood sexuality was a per- sistent reminder of the human tendency to squander."lo Finally, we have an attempt to combine bourgeois morality with prob- lems of child rearing in the nineteenth century. R.P. Neuman wrote that middle class fears of masturbation can be explained by the fact that the age of puberty was declining, while marriage, the' 'only socially respectable sex- ual outlet for the middle classes," was generally postponed until the late 'Shorter, The Modern Family, p. 299. 7Hare, "Masturbational Insanity," p. 16. 'Arthur N. Gilbert, "Doctor, Patient, and Onanist Diseases in the Nineteenth Century," Journal 0/ the History 0/ Medicine and Allied Sciences, 20 (July, 1975): 217-254. 'Peter Cominos, "Late Victorian Sexual Responsibility and the Social System," International Review 0/ Social History, 8 (1963): p. 223. '·Stephen Kern, "Explosive Intimacy: Psychodymanics 0 f the Victorian Family," History 0/ Childhood Quorterly, 1 (Winter, 1974): p. 452. 270 Albion twenties. II As a result, the problem of parental control over childhood sex- uality became more acute. All of these theories have weaknesses, and in some cases the evidence is slim. Links between child rearing practices, middle class values, social sys- tems, the medical profession, and anti-masturbation are plausible, but we need a more careful analysis of nineteenth century writers who propagated connections between disease and masturbation. In depth analysis can help to show how anti-masturbation was linked to other personal values held by the individual under study. Seeing anti-onanism contextually, as part of a web of inter-related attitudes, should help our understanding of the mean- ing of masturbation at this time in history. This article will examine the views of Henry Madusley, a prominent psy- chologist and longtime editor of the Journal of Mental Science. He has been called the "father of English psychiatry," and he believed that masturba- tion was related to insanity. Study of one anti-onanist may not prove or dis- prove the variety of theories noted above, but it will show what Maudsley's fears were, and this may provide important clues to fear of masturbation. Henry Maudsley, the third son of Thomas Maudsley, was born in 1835 in the Yorkshire village of Settle. Il His parents were Yorkshire yeoman about whom we know little. Maudsley's early education was at Gigglesworth School, but when he was twelve or thirteen, at the suggestion of his uncle Dr. Bateson, he became the private pupil of a Mr. Neuth of Oundle, North- amptonshire. It was evidently during this period that Maudsley decided on a career in medicine and he enrolled at the University College, London. He achieved an outstanding record before graduating in 1856 by earning ten gold medals, including one in surgery, and the University scholarship. In addition to his studies, he was quite interested in sports, in particular cricket, for which he maintained a lifelong fascination.13 Maudsley planned, after graduating, to enter the Indian Medical Service, but training in lunacy was required for a post so he took a position at the Essex County Asylum, a decision which determined his entire professional career. From Essex, he went to the Wakefield Asylum for a brief period and "R.P. Neuman, "Masturbation, Madness, and Modern Concepts of Childhood and Adoles- cence," Journal of Social History, 8 (Spring, 1975): 7. I2Seee G. H. Savage's obituary on Maudsley, Journal of Mental Science, 64 (April, 1918): 117- 23. Other information on Maudsley's life can be found in The Times obituary (January 25, 1918); Who Was Who, (1916-1928); William Munk, Lives of the Fellows of the Royal College of Physicians, 1826-1925, Vol. 4, compiled by G. H. Brown, 4 vols. (London, 1955), p. 172; F. W. Mott, "FRS Maudsley's Obituary," British Medical Journal (February 2, 1918): p. 161-162; Annual Register (1918) p. 162; and Lancet, 1 (1918): 193-194. "Savage, Journal of Mental Science, p. 118. Masturbation and Insanity 271 then was appointed director of the Manchester Royal Lunatic Hospital, al- though only twenty-four years old, where he remained until 1862.14 Maudsley had started writing articles on diverse subjects and one essay "Hamlet" came to the attention of Dr. John Conolly, superintendent of Hanwell Asylum. Maudsley became the resident physician of one of Conol- ly's hospitals in 1859 and soon after married Conolly's youngest daughter, Anne. Little is known about the marriage except that they had no children and that Maudsley was devoted to his home life. In 1862, Maudsley became the editor of the Journal oj Mental Science and for many years he was its most regular contributor. His range of in- terests was enormous. Among his publications in the journal were articles on Edgar Allan Poe, phrenology, the genesis of the mind, and middle class hospitals for the insane. From the very beginning of his career, Maudsley was known as a medical materialist; the mind and body were intimately re- lated and mental illness resulted from physical harm to the brain and the nervous system. In one of his earliest essays, "The Correlation of Mental and Physical Force: or Man, a part of Nature," Maudsley stated his views on the unity of mind and body: It is very unlikely that there should be two such essentially distinct orders of phenomenon in the universe; that in fact, it is almost inconceivable that there should be a unity and continuity throughout the mighty field of nature, that con- tinuity extending into man's own nature, there suddenly to be broken off." In the interplay of mind and body, Maudsley found the explanation for the moral failings of individuals and mankind in general. "Everydayex- perience," Maudsley observed, "will supply hundreds of examples of the direct manner in which moral character is influenced by the physical state."·1 His fascination with Edgar Allan Poe reflected these same values. Poe's moral weakness led to physical indulgence, which in turn led to "madness and horror and sin . .,n An old friend. Dr. O. H. Savage, described Maudsley in an obituary as "rather unfriendly," a man "who seemed to prefer solitude and contempla- tion to social life ... Maudsley belonged to several clubs, but did not enter in- to the social side of medical life, and he was not personally popular. Savage recalls telling Maudsley that he was "so absorbed in his love for humanity that he had no affection to spare for the individual." II Several men who ··Ibid, p. 124. ·'Maudsley, "The Correlations of Mental and Physical Force; or Man a Part l,f Nature:' Joumtll qf Mental S c i ~ , 6 (October, 1859): 59. ·'lbid, p. 60. nMaudsley, "Edgar Allan Poe," JOIU1KII qf Mettal Scierece, 6 (October, 1859): p. 366. "Savage, JOIU'IIQI qf Mental Science, p. 119. 272 Aibion knew him remarked that his sympathies would have been wider and his well known pessimism tempered had he children of his own. 19 With few familial and social responsibilities, Maudsley was free to devote himself to work, as journal editor and later as Professor of Medical Juris- prudence at University College. When not occupied with official duties, Maudsley spent his time writing and his output was impressive. Although he wrote on many subjects, his work always stressed the bodily sources of men- tal illness and his tone was usually pessimistic. As he grew older, Maudsley became more and more interested in medico-legal issues and an advocate of more enlightened policies in the treatment of the insane. In 1907, he gave £30,000 to the London County Council for a mental hospital and the Maudsley Hospital on Denmark Hill is testimony to his largess. Maudsley was an anti-onanist. In The Pathology oj Mind, he described the results of self-abuse in glowing terms: When, degeneration going on, they reach the last and worst stage of degrada- tion, they sink into an apathetic state of moody and morose self-absorption with extreme loss of mental power. They sit or lie all day, or saunter lazily about, muttering or smiling to themselves, lost to all healthy feeling and human in- terests, slovenly and dirty: if they enter into any conversations, they probably re- veal delusions of a SUSpicious or obscene nature .... So they linger on pitiable wrecks of degradation, from year to year, becoming weaker in mind and body until they die from complete nervous prostration or from some inner current disease to which they fall easy victim at last. 2 • The price of masturbation is clearly heavy. Obviously, Maudsley's writings on masturbation were a product of the 1860s and 18708 when other medical men wrote in a similar vein. We can be- gin, then, by stating that Henry Mauds1ey was a product of his time and that he was in good company in expressing his dislike of self-abuse. In 1865, Dr. William Acton assailed masturbation. He tied it, among other things, to atrophy of the sexual organs, a consequence only slightly less frightening than Maudsley's picture of decadence and death. 21 Professor S.M. Bemiss wrote of how masturbation brought on epilepsy in The New Orleans Jour- nal oj Medicine (1869), and Dr. Frederick Hollick claimed that masturba- tion caused baldness and premature whitening of the hair, with psychic con- sequences to hairless males that we can only imagine. 22 To some extent, "Ibid, and Mott, Briti6h MediCIII JOUI'1UlI, p. 161. '"Mawisley, The Pathology 0/ Mind (New York. 1880), p. 4S9. "William Acton, The Functi0n8 and DiIorder8 0/ tire Reproductive Organs in Childhood, Youth, Adult Age and AdYanad Age (Phj)adelpbia. 1865), p. S7. HOn Bemiss lee Georre H. NapbeyJ, M.D., The Tranmrission 0/ Li/e Counsels On tire Na- ture and Hygiene 0/ the Mt16CUIlne Function (Philadelphia, 1872), p. 92; Frederick Holick, The Male Generative 0r,tmI1n Hetdlh and Dl8eo8e /rom In/ancy to Old Age (New York, 1849), p. 347. Masturbation and Insanity 273 Maudsley's views on masturbation simply reflected the conventional wis- dom of the day. Maudsley and other psychologists had many opportunities to observe in- mates of asylums in various states of deterioration, masturbating: that is, there was some empirical justification. The nineteenth century saw the growth and development of the asylum and of the scientific study of mental illness. The sight of an insane individual masturbating had a powerful im- pact on asylum attendants, doctors, and psychologists. ZJ It led to the easy assumption that seminal loss had created the deteriorating mental condition. Yet this explanation for Maudsley and others does not explain why mastur- bation, above all other observable phenomenon in the insane, should have assumed such importance. Nor does it explain the links between masturba- tion and the wide variety of disease tied to self-abuse. Maudsley had ob- served insane people masturbating, and had assumed cause and effect. Did Hollick watch hairlines recede in direct proportion to seminal expenditure; or conversely, did he study hairy abstentionists? No, the linkage between masturbation and evil consequence was not a product of observation, but of ideology. It was assumed, and it is the reasons for this assumption that must be examined. By focusing on Maudsley's fears, his conception of evil, certain common themes emerge which link together sexuality, insanity, and criminaiity. For example, Maudsley wrote extensively about the causes of crime with special emphasis on criminal types. In 1888, Maudsley wrote an article in The Journal 0/ Mental Science titl- ed, "Remarks on Crime and Criminals," in which he divided criminals into two categories. 24 Occasional criminals committed crimes because of their social situation and perhaps because of temptation. Nurture, not nature, was the prime mover. Natural criminals, the category which most interested Maudsley, were victims of heredity or some form of physical, moral, and mental degeneracy. Natural criminals were endowed with attributes which programmed them for a life of crime. The natural criminal was first and foremost a product of deficient moral sensibility, reflecting a kind of mental backsliding to a lower stage on the evolutionary scale. As Maudsley put it, The sense of moral relations or so-c:aIled moral fedina, and the rme qualities of reason and conduct that are correlates with it are the latest and the hiahest pro- ducts of mental evolution; being the least stable, therefore they are the rust to disappear in mental deaeneration, which is in the literal sense of IIlfkiltding or undoing of mind; and when they are stripped off the more primitive and more "For example, see S. G. Howe. On the Causes o/Idiocy (reprinted, New Yark. 1972), .o77le JowNll Q/ Melttai Scierrce. 35 (1888): p. 162. 274 Albion stable passions are exposed-naked and not ashamed, just as they were in the premoral ages of animals and human life on earth." There are a number of related themes in this partial portrait of the natural criminal. Underneath the thin veneer of civilization there lurks the primitive savagery of a lower evolutionary state. Take away this veneer from the indi- vidual or the society and we are back to "premoral ages." Further, this moral veneer is unstable. When degeneration sets in, it is the first to go. The metaphor used to describe potential criminality is also interesting. Morality is "stripped off" and passions are "exposed-naked and not ashamed." Maudsley notes that natural criminals may still be intellectually acute, but they are "engaged almost exclusively in the narrow sphere of their imme- diate interests" and "are sometimes sharpened by continual exercise there to a fine edge of low, fox-like cunning."26 His portrait of the degenerate natural criminal noted the growth "of sim- ple and coarse anti-social impulses" and that the "moral treachery" of one generation "may come out in the criminality of the next":that is, natural criminals are born, not made, for they are the products of genetic defi- ciencies. 27 Maudsley's portrait of the natural criminal emphasizes imme- diate, narrow interests; it is self interest at the expense of a moral code that embraces social responsibility. Ties between criminality and madness in Maudsley's work are explicit. In The Pathology of Mind. he stated unequivocally that "crime and madness are the active outcome of anti-social tendencies," adding, "It is well known how hard a thing it is sometimes to distinguish between these two forms of human degeneracy. "21 As with the natural criminal, Maudsley placed heavy emphasis on heredity. "No training in the world will avail to elicit grapes from thorns or figs from thistles," he wrote in Responsibility in Mental Disease. "and it will ever be impossible to raise a stable superstructure of in- tellect and character on bad natural foundations. "29 Although Maudsley never used the term, it is clear that he believed that there was a "natural" madman who resembled the natural criminal. Like the natural criminal, the natural madman is characterized by an in- ability to reach a higher stage of mental and moral development. He re- mains in a halfway house where animality overwhelms those higher faculties that are the essence of civilization. Maudsley observed, "Ibid. "Ibid. "Ibid. "Maudsley, The Pathology of Mind, p. 100. "Maudsley, Responsibility in Mental Disease (New York, 1900) p. 21. Masturbation and Insanity 275 With the progress of mankind to a higher stage of evolution, there are correlative possibilities of retrograde change; the weaker members who cannot bear the strain of progress will fall by the wayside; and an increased quantity as well as an increased variety of mental derangement will bear witness that the individual perishes, while the race grows more and more.'· Similarities between criminality and insanity extend beyond heredity and descriptions of drop-outs from evolutionary progress. Over and over again Maudsley finds two characteristics of insanity, of the insane temperament, which are in effect his definition of madness. The first is passion: insanity is caused by "sensual indulgence and the exhaustion consequent thereupon. " It was this fear of passion of all kinds that turned Maudsley into an ardent foe of religious enthusiasm. According to him, religious organizations that stressed "emotional excitement" were adding to mental instability and, therefore, to the number of insane people in society. In a long article titled "Delusions" Maudsley added, "It is well that devotion should be calm and sober at all times; it is necessary that it be so if there is any innate or tempo- rary susceptibility to disturbing mental cause."31 Along with anger and reli- gious enthusiasm as debilitating passions, Maudsley put love. "The ardor of love is a temporary insanity," Maudsley wrote in 1863, adding that "In a lunatic asylum some are found who are under a permanent passion of love .... " Returning to suspect religious enthusiasm, he argued that some Christian saints suffered from an excess of love directed towards imaginary rather than real beings. There are several aspects of Maudsley's conception of passion that are noteworthy. Passion is not only emotional enthusiasm but also monomania. For the passionate individual cannot escape from forever dwelling on the all consuming idee fIXe. It is a product of the lack of intel- lectual and moral self-control which causes overconcentration of the incor- poreal, the spiritual, and the imaginary. Maudsley felt that some madmen "under the sway of a permanent passion" were unable to discern "objective realities," while the passionate lover "worships an ideal of his imagination rather than an actual being." Lovers in asylums, Maudsley added "con- verse in words of endearing affection with lovers whom no one can see but themselves . . . ." The enemies of sanity are enthusiasm, spirituality and monomania. It was the last-monomania-which most frightened Mauds- ley. Appearing in virtually every article and book Maudsley wrote on insanity are innumerable references to the individual who has cut himself off from larger societal concerns to wallow in intense preoccupation with himself. In .OMaudsley, Th Pathology oj Mind, pp. 130-131. "Ibid, p. 46. 276 Albion The Pathology of Mind, Maudsley made this concern explicit. Separated from the social organism of which he is element or unit, the whole working in him and he in it, the individual could no more live and function than an organ or a structural element of the body which, dreaming itself self-sufficing should forget its dependence on the whole and start life on its own account. The essence of mad and of bad wrong doing, that which makes the one disease and the other crime, is that it is anti-social: the individual being very much in the social what a diseased organ is in the physiological organism, something sepa- rate, out of harmony and unity with it, alienated from it, in fact too individual." In describing the insane temperament, Maudsley speaks of "great self-feel- ing and vanity" and being "engrossed in the affectations of self." The morally insane individual sees everything "from the standpoint of the nar- rowest selftshness." 33 This theme is well illustrated in Maudsley's essays on Edgar Allen Poe and Emmanuel Swedenborg. Poe clearly fascinated Maudsley and he was not unsympathetic to the American writer in whom he recognized uncom- mon qualities, an authentic literary genius, yet Maudsley was mainly in- terested in showing how passion, and most importantly, self-indulgence had led him to unhappiness and death. Poe, according to Maudsley, never learn- ed self-control. There are men who, like Poe have such intense self-feeling, cannot realize the fact of a not-self; they seem to look upon the world as a place created for them to play their pranks in .... " As a counterpoint to Poe's disastrous life, Maudsley asserted that "man al- ways is in reality happiest when he is under some restraint," when he is "forced into self-denial, and made a reasonable creature."H Emanuel Swedenborg was for Maudsley a similar case for he lacked "in- tellectual self-restraint." In the end he displayed "a self-sufficiency know- ing no bounds" as well as "preposterous pretensions of monomania, and an imagination habitually running riot that at last ran mad."36 F or both Swedenborg and Poe the consequences of moral and intellectual monomania was madness. In effect, the man who lacked self restraint was on the road to suicide and, as one might guess, Maudsley viewed suicide as the ultimate form of selftshness. Only cowards commit suicide, Maudsley once noted. They were guilty of "shirking duty, generated in a monstrous feeling of self, and accomplished in the most sinful, because willful ignor- ance."J1 "Maudsley, "Delusions," Journal of Mental Science, 9 (1863): 21. "Maudsley, The Pathology of Mind, pp. 23, 298, 345. "Maudsley, "Edpr Allen Poe," Journal of Mental Science, 6 (1859-60): 356. "Ibid, p. 344. "Mauds1ey, "Emanuel Swedenbora." Journal 0/ Mental Scimce, 15 (1869): p. 185. "Mauds1ey, "On Love of Ufe," Journal 0/ Mental Science. 7 (1860): 208. Masturbation and Insanity 277 Paralleling Maudsley's dislike of religious enthusiasm was a profound distaste for religious asceticism. As we have seen, enthusiasm leads to pas- sion and insanity. Asceticism on the other hand, leads to "an exaggerated selfhood ... something like madness."JI For Maudsley, this fear of reli- gious asceticism as a kind of madness had its modern counterpart in the acquisitive grasping businessman who loses all sense of social responsibility. Maudsley addressed the Medical Psychological Association in 1871 about the 'deterioration of character" produced "by a life of mean and petty de- ceit and grasping selfishness in business," and attacked the "single minded pursuit of riches as a cause of moral and mental degeneracy."3' Maudsley had earlier made the point even more explicit by advising men that marriage to the daughter of an insane person was better than marriage to "the daughter of one who had lived a life of hard selfishness, without thought or care of others .... "40 To Maudsley, the nineteenth century capitalist's pur- suit of wealth was similar to the early Christian's pursuit of salvation. Those who rolled in thorns and retreated into deserts had their modern day equivalent in businessmen who rolled in money and sought personal salva- tion in riches. Both types were anti-social, both were selfish, and ultimately, both were mad. Once we understand Maudsley's fear of passion and selfishness which can lead to criminality, madness, or both, not only for the individual but for his descendants, it is easy to understand his hatred of masturbation. It was the one sexual act that symbolized passion, a characteristic of all sexual acti- vity, and intense self-absorption. It profoundly threatened both the indivi- dual and society. It was the pathway to crime and insanity and threatened not only the individual's own body but the social body as well. One quota- tion from Maudsley on the subject of the insanity of self-abuse will illus- trate this common theme. The most striking features in this variety of mental derangement are the intense selfishness of self-conceit that are shoWn. The patient is completely wrapped up in self, insensible of the claims of others upon him and of his duties to them, IIypocllondrillctJlly occupied with IIis senstltions and IIis bodily func- tions, abandoned to indolent and solitary seU-brooding. he displays a wz"ity and quite unbecoming his qe and position; exacts the constant indul- gence of others without the least thouaht of obliaation or aratitude, and is apt, if "Maudsley, TIte htltology of MiItd. p. 20. "Maudsley, ·"Insanity and Its Treatment," Address at the Annual General Meeting of the Medico-PsycholQlical Assoc:iatiOll, 3 Auaust, 1871, Royal CoUeae of Physicians, in JOfU1ttlI of Mmtlll Scietce. 17 (1871): p •. 319. 4IMaudsley, "On Some of the Causes of Insanity, It JOfIIftIII of Metllll ScieIce, 12 (1867): p. 495. 278 Albion he gets not the consideration which he claims, to declare that his family are un- feeling and do not understand him, or are actually hostile to him.'· (italics mine) Masturbation, Maudsley believed, was evil because it symbolized anti- social behavior. It was the supreme narcissistic act, the retreat into selfish enjoyment of one's own body without reference to the social order, and a heinous sin against the body politic. The masturbator was a sexual hermit, a nineteenth-century equivalent of Simon Stylites. 42 Taking solace in his own body and fmding gratification in orgasm and fantasy rather than in society and useful work, the Onanist was dangerous. It should be emphasized that there was no casual relation between masturbation and madness: for Maudsley, it was madness. The insane person withdrew from the world and lost himself in delusion and anti-social behavior; the Onanist withdrew from the world and lost himself in self-love and illusion-and that was mad- ness. Most significant in Maudsley's writing is the common source of mas- turbation and insanity. They were linked because they were solitary vices. It was no accident that Maudsley and other nineteenth-century anti-onanists emphasized the dangers of solitude and found the symptoms of madness- masturbator's face-in the shy, retiring, or scholarly individual who re- treated from social intercourse. Maudsley's own life probably influenced his views on the dangers of anti- social behavior. Personally a loner who had difficulties making friends and fmding popularity, his fear of solitary vices may have reflected fear of the very life style to which his personality and his social experiences had con- demned him. Concern with madness, crime, and masturbation as self- absorption and self-abuse might have been Maudsley's way of doing battle with the concerns of his own life. While a discussion of other nineteenth-century anti-onanist doctors is beyond the scope of this essay, it should be noted that Maudsley's fears were not unique. William Acton described masturbational insanity in words reminiscent of Maudsley: "Engaged in no social diversion, the patients of this group live alone in the midst of many .... They work alone or they sit alone."·J ··Maudsley, The Pathology of Mind. pp.452-53. "See Maudsley's unflattering discussion of Simon Stylites in "Delusions," Jou"",1 of Mental Science, p. 18. "Quoted in Steven Marcus, The Other Victorians (New York, 1964), p. 20. Acton, however did stress evils other than the solitary nature of the act. He showed far greater concern with the impact of mastlD'bation on children than did Maudsley. He also stressed that masturba- tion ruined men for leXuai activity in marriage and most importantly, referred to the physical dangers of spendiDl sperm in a proflipte manner. Acton's work gives credence to many of the current theories about mastlD'bation phobia in the nineteenth century. At the very least, this study of Maudlley Ibows that an in-depth analysis of many writers on onanistn is neces- sary before any final c:oadlllioa on fear of telf abuse can be reached. Masturbation and Insanity 279 In America, Dr. James Jackson also stressed the dangers of masturbation as a solitary act: "The solitarily vicious person is like the solitary villain, so circumstanced as to almost inevitably be ruined . . . . Alone and uncom- panioned, he broods over his habitudes and pursues his courses until he is incurably diseased or depraved .... " Once again, insanity, criminality, or onanism are viewed as evil because they are selfish and anti-social. In a re- markable statement on the subject of masturbation, Jackson congratulated those boys who were social enough to masturbate together: "It is not, there- fore, to be deplored that boys who are in the habit of masturbating perform the act in each other's presence, but is rather considered as a favorable symptom in their cases. "44 The Maudsley case, while not disproving current theories of the reasons for concern with masturbation in the nineteenth century does, nonetheless, call them into question. There is no evidence, for example, that Maudsley felt that nineteenth-century men and women were manipulating their sexual organs more frequently than in previous centuries. He did discuss the ques- tion of the increase in insanity in a number of articles, but not the growth of auto-eroticism. There is, in Maudsley's writing, the usual nineteenth-cen- tury concern with the effect of masturbation on young people; and it is pos- sible that he was responding to extended adolescence and enforced sexual abstinence. Still, his focus was not youth centered. Maudsley had no chil- dren, and while he had great respect for home and family, his concerns were largely with the masturbatory sins of one generation causing decay and de- generation in the next. Also problematic is the spending and saving hypothesis, with its link be- tween middle class attitudes toward financial and sexual thrift. Maudsley attacked those businessmen who relentlessly pursued wealth. His portrait of the miser who cuts himself off from larger social concerns is not favorable. If the sexual and economic saving hypothesis holds true for Maudsley, he should have emphasized the virtues of both economic and seminal thrift. Maudsley believed in seminal saving, but his attitude towards money was ambigious. In any case, as Charles Rosenberg has pointed out, those theories which link sexual repression with middle class values present "grave chronological problems. "45 By the mid-nineteenth century, the mid- dle class had been around for a long time, yet sexual control and fear of masturbation were of much less concern for everyone in earlier centuries. The Protestant ethic and individual responsibility were an important part of Maudsley's thinking, but these values predate intense concern with "James Jackson, The Sexual Organism and its Hetlltliful Management (Boston, 1862), p. 60. "Charles Rosenberg, "Sexuality, Cass and R o l ~ in 19th Century America," American Quarterly, 2S (May, 1973): 152. 280 Albion masturbation. As E. H. Hare has pointed out, Catholic Frenchmen were as concerned with masturbation as their Protestant neighbors across the En- glish Channel. 06 Status anomaly does not surface in Maudsley's work. Maudsley's writings suggest that it might be more fruitful to concentrate on the fear of passion and selfishness that permeated views of sexual de- pravity, criminality, and mental deterioration in the mid- and late-nine- teenth century. For Maudsley, these were all cut from the same cloth. Mary Douglas has argued that the human body is a symbol of society, and bodily control is a symbol of social control. Interest in bodily apertures, Professor Douglas notes, "depends on the preoccupation with social exits and en- trances, escape routes and invasions."47 We might add that modes of sexuality, as one of the most intimate of all bodily activities, have high sym- bolic content, and that forbidden modes of sexuality reflect larger societal concerns. This seems to have been true for Maudsley. Maudsley's work, like other Victorian writers, reflected the decline of tra- ditional society and the rise of urbanization and industrialization, a condi- tion unique to England, America, and Europe in the nineteenth century. Richard Altick has summed up the conditions spawned by urbanization in the following description of city life. Perhaps worst of all, it was crowded with rootless, anonymous strangers, indif- ferent to their fellows' fate, bent only on surviving the competitive turmoil .... Paradoxically, the closer people were brought together physically, as in mill or slum, the farther apart they drifted in any social or spiritual sense; in the midst of crowds they were alone." Walter Houghton agrees in his description of Victorian England as foster- ing "the feeling of isolation and loneliness, so characteristic of modern man. "49 Altick's phrase "competitive turmoil" is particularly reminiscent of Maudsley, who saw in competition the seeds of selfishness and anti-social behavior, and in turmoil the passion that could destroy man and society. Although Maudsley spent most of his life writing about insanity as a medical doctor and a scientist, he operated within the confines of an ideology which permeated his views of criminality, insanity, and sexuality. His early writings show the enormous influence of Thomas Carlyle, for like Carlyle he was greatly concerned with the evils of industrialization in Vic- torian England. It was Carlyle who observed, "Men cannot live isolated: we are all bound together, for mutual good or else for mutual misery. as living "Hare, "Masturbational Insanity," p. 12. "Mary Douglas, Natural Symbols: Explanations in Cosmology (New York, 1970), p. 70. "Richard Altick, Victorian People and Ideas (New York, 1973), p. i7. "Walter E. Houghton, The Victorian Frame of Mind. 1830-1870 (New Haven, 1957), pp. I, 77. Masturbation and Insanity 281 nerves in the same body," and Maudsley who concurred in his essay on Swedenborg: "But no man is self-sufficing in this universe, and it is an irre- mediable misfortune to him who imagines that he is .... "50 Like Carlyle, Ruskin, and other foes of nineteenth-century capitalism, Maudsley was deeply distressed by laissez-Iaire practices which he believed had contri- buted to the alienation and the selfishness of modern life. He shared with Carlyle a deep pessimism about the condition and the fate of man. The only way out for the individual was altruism and emotional detachment which conquered seltbood. Altruism was the antidote to chaos and madness. With his organic view of society and his hostility to selfishness, Maudsley was in opposition to those Social Darwinists who praised the competitive struggle for existence and equated combat with progress. Yet in many re- spects, his views on society were not far removed from those of Darwin, Huxley and even Herbert Spencer. While there is ambiguity in Darwin, as Howard Gruber has argued, "Cooperation among members of the same species and symbiotic relationships among members of different species were as much a part of D.arwin's thinking as direct competition.'· T. H. Huxley had also been greatly influenced by Carlyle and he shared with Maudsley a devotion to the ideal of hard work and the same pessimistic view of mankind. 52 Both men stressed the benefits of cooperation within society albeit for different reasons. For Huxley the struggle for existence stopped at the water's edge because human society depended on coopera- tion not conflict. He wrote in "Evolution and Ethics": "Let us understand ... that the ethical progress of society depends, not on imitating the cosmic process, still less in running away from it, but in combating it."53 For Maudsley the size of the universe, the age of the earth and the tiny place of a single human being in the order of things was a constant reminder of man's insignificance. It was for him a call for humility and altruism: "The scien- tific spirit of the present age preaches self renunciation.'''4 Maudsley's call for cooperation brought him close to at least one side of Herbert Spencer's views on man's relationship to society. While best known as an apostle of lassiez faire, there is in Spencer an organic view of society "'Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present (New York, 1927), p. 296; and Maudsley, "Emanuel Swedenborg," Journal 0/ Mental Science, p. 186. "Howard E. Gruber, Darwin on Man: A Psychological Study 0/ Scientific Creativity (New York, 1964), p. S4. nOn Huxley's pessimism see William Irvine Apes, Angels, and Victorians (New York, 19S5), p.42S. ''T. H. Huxley, Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays, (New York, 19(3), p. 83. "Maudsley, "Delusions," Journal 0/ Mental Science, p. 22. 282 Albion that was very similar to MaudsleY's.!5 Indeed Spencer, ruminating on the future of mankind wrote that the requirements of the social state must take precendence in the future before "crimes, excesses, diseases, improprieties, dishonesties, and cruelties ... can cease."" Unlike Spencer, Huxley, and other eminent Victorians there was no ambiguity in Maudsley when the evil of selfhood was the issue. He was a clear-cut representative of what Gertrude Himmelfarb has labeled the Vic- torian Angst: "The ultimate abnegation beyond food, dress, pleasure, even sex, was the abnegation of self .... "" For Maudsley, this abnegation was the road of sanity and whether criminality, insanity, suicide, or masturba- tion were involved, the fear remained the same: Society must be protected from passion and selfishness-from atomization. The individual's choice was clear, To live for others or to live for self, that is the question: -whether the actions shall be excited by the altruistic feeling for the welfare of others, or whether they shall be prompted by the egoistic passions for the gratification of self?" For Maudsley, the lonely, furtive, selfish onanist was a symbol of catastrophe. "See Stanislaw Andreski, ed., Herbert Spencer: Structure. Function. and Evolution (London, 1971), and Robert L. Carniero, Herbert Spencer: The Evolution of Society (Chicago, 1967). "Herbert Spencer, "A Theory of Population Deduced from the General Law of Animal fer- tility," The Westminister Review. n.s. 1 (1852): pp. 485-86. "Gertrude Himmelfarb, Victorian Minds (New York, 1968), p. 309. "Maudsiey, "Delusions," Journal of Mental Science. p. 23. 20 (July. while marriage. The middle class moral code based on saving. "Explosive Intimacy: Psychodymanics 0 f the Victorian Family. 223.' Along similar lines. p. Continence was good. 8 (1963): p." Journal 0/ the History 0/ Medicine and Allied Sciences. 1975): 217-254. Hare speculated that this was because of fear of venereal disease caused by intercourse. "A penny saved is a penny earned" had a spermatic equivalent. 1974): p. R. The Modern Family.' Recent efforts to explain anti-onanism have treated it as one aspect of a general fear of sexual excess of all kinds. 16. Masturbation was safer. for their passing on misinformation. Neuman wrote that middle class fears of masturbation can be explained by the fact that the age of puberty was declining. As Cominos put it."6 It is not likely that historians will uncover reliable data on incidence of self-abuse to prove or disprove this hypothesis. "Late Victorian Sexual Responsibility and the Social System.P. 299. Sperm retention became as important as saving money for a proverbial rainy day. '·Stephen Kern. we have an attempt to combine bourgeois morality with problems of child rearing in the nineteenth century. The economic virtues and vices-derivations of the quality inherent in the structure and functioning of the economic system and vindicated by the political economists-included the sexual virtues and vices on continence and incontinence. 1 (Winter. Hare has argued that the conservatism of medical men and their refusal to test the onanist hypothesis accounts. commented that "childhood sexuality was a persistent reminder of the human tendency to squander. Gilbert. who saw masturbation as part of a general increase in sexual appetite. a great concern in the nineteenth century. 'Peter Cominos. "Masturbational Insanity." History 0/ Childhood Quorterly. 452. Another approach to anti-onanism examined the question with reference to the medical profession. and Onanist Diseases in the Nineteenth Century. at least in part.. 7Hare.. Patient. asserted that it was "unlikely that masturbation . 7 I have argued elsewhere that "status anomaly" -the gap between prestige and skill level-resulted in a situation where doctors were driven to explain diseases of which they had inadequate knowledge in terms of the moral failings of their patients. and as an adjunct of middle class morality.Masturbation and Insanity 269 they read medical journals on the subject-enjoying it less. . the' 'only socially respectable sexual outlet for the middle classes." International Review 0/ Social History. Shorter. drawing on Freudian theories of anality and parsimoniousness." p. Stephen Kern. Peter Cominos first suggested links between economic values and sexuality. "Doctor."lo Finally." was generally postponed until the late 'Shorter. 'Arthur N. was practiced on a wide scale before the premarital sexual revolution. thrift and parsimoniousness was transferred to the sexual sphere. attained by sublimation through industry. From Essex. He has been called the "father of English psychiatry. but it will show what Maudsley's fears were. 4 vols. (London. Maudsley's early education was at Gigglesworth School. 64 (April. F. Seeing anti-onanism contextually." Journal of Social History. and Modern Concepts of Childhood and Adolescence. 118. Other information on Maudsley's life can be found in The Times obituary (January 25. This article will examine the views of Henry Madusley." British Medical Journal (February 2. 162. 172. but we need a more careful analysis of nineteenth century writers who propagated connections between disease and masturbation. he went to the Wakefield Asylum for a brief period and "R. "Savage. Lives of the Fellows of the Royal College of Physicians. W. II As a result. the third son of Thomas Maudsley. 1955). he became the private pupil of a Mr.270 Albion twenties. He achieved an outstanding record before graduating in 1856 by earning ten gold medals. Who Was Who. "FRS Maudsley's Obituary. Study of one anti-onanist may not prove or disprove the variety of theories noted above. Vol. . and the University scholarship.P. Journal of Mental Science. a decision which determined his entire professional career. p. 1826-1925. Neuth of Oundle. 1918). he was quite interested in sports. and in some cases the evidence is slim. social systems. "Masturbation. and this may provide important clues to fear of masturbation. the problem of parental control over childhood sexuality became more acute. 4. Links between child rearing practices. In addition to his studies. All of these theories have weaknesses. Madness. Annual Register (1918) p. Savage's obituary on Maudsley. Mott. p. 1 (1918): 193-194. Neuman. but training in lunacy was required for a post so he took a position at the Essex County Asylum. (1916-1928). to enter the Indian Medical Service. I l His parents were Yorkshire yeoman about whom we know little. 1918): 11723. I2Seee G. for which he maintained a lifelong fascination. Journal of Mental Science. was born in 1835 in the Yorkshire village of Settle. H. middle class values. and anti-masturbation are plausible. 1918): p. at the suggestion of his uncle Dr. 8 (Spring. a prominent psychologist and longtime editor of the Journal ofMental Science. should help our understanding of the meaning of masturbation at this time in history. 161-162. Bateson. In depth analysis can help to show how anti-masturbation was linked to other personal values held by the individual under study. Northamptonshire. H. and Lancet. but when he was twelve or thirteen. the medical profession. Henry Maudsley. including one in surgery. after graduating. as part of a web of inter-related attitudes.13 Maudsley planned." and he believed that masturbation was related to insanity. London. Brown. William Munk. It was evidently during this period that Maudsley decided on a career in medicine and he enrolled at the University College. in particular cricket. compiled by G. 1975): 7. " JOIU1KII qf Mettal Scierece. In 1862. but did not enter into the social side of medical life. 1859): 59. which in turn led to "madness and horror and sin . O. Maudsley belonged to several clubs. "The Correlations of Mental and Physical Force. the genesis of the mind. 6 (October. . or Man a Part l. Anne.n An old friend. although only twenty-four years old..f Nature:' Joumtll qf Mental Sci~. Maudsley became the editor of the Journal oj Mental Science and for many years he was its most regular contributor. In one of his earliest essays. JOIU'IIQI qf Mental Science. a part of Nature. Maudsley found the explanation for the moral failings of individuals and mankind in general. ." a man "who seemed to prefer solitude and contemplation to social life . Among his publications in the journal were articles on Edgar Allan Poe. From the very beginning of his career. 124.. described Maudsley in an obituary as "rather unfriendly. ·'lbid. Poe's moral weakness led to physical indulgence. His range of interests was enormous.. "The Correlation of Mental and Physical Force: or Man. it is almost inconceivable that there should be a unity and continuity throughout the mighty field of nature. there suddenly to be broken off." Maudsley observed. Savage recalls telling Maudsley that he was "so absorbed in his love for humanity that he had no affection to spare for the individual. Little is known about the marriage except that they had no children and that Maudsley was devoted to his home life."·1 His fascination with Edgar Allan Poe reflected these same values." In the interplay of mind and body. 366. John Conolly. superintendent of Hanwell Asylum. and middle class hospitals for the insane. "Everydayexperience. "Savage. nMaudsley. the mind and body were intimately related and mental illness resulted from physical harm to the brain and the nervous system.Masturbation and Insanity 271 then was appointed director of the Manchester Royal Lunatic Hospital." II Several men who ··Ibid. 6 (October. Savage. "Edgar Allan Poe.14 Maudsley had started writing articles on diverse subjects and one essay "Hamlet" came to the attention of Dr. H. ·'Maudsley. p. 119. phrenology. that continuity extending into man's own nature. Dr. that in fact. where he remained until 1862. 60." Maudsley stated his views on the unity of mind and body: It is very unlikely that there should be two such essentially distinct orders of phenomenon in the universe. Maudsley was known as a medical materialist. Maudsley became the resident physician of one of Conolly's hospitals in 1859 and soon after married Conolly's youngest daughter. p. p. and he was not personally popular. "will supply hundreds of examples of the direct manner in which moral character is influenced by the physical state. 1859): p. Frederick Holick. degeneration going on. 1872). Obviously. We can begin. Dr. 1880). his work always stressed the bodily sources of mental illness and his tone was usually pessimistic. to atrophy of the sexual organs. 19 With few familial and social responsibilities. with psychic consequences to hairless males that we can only imagine. Maudsley's writings on masturbation were a product of the 1860s and 18708 when other medical men wrote in a similar vein. p. a consequence only slightly less frightening than Maudsley's picture of decadence and death. then. 347. The Male Generative 0r. as journal editor and later as Professor of Medical Jurisprudence at University College. Adult Age and AdYanad Age (Phj)adelpbia. The Functi0n8 and DiIorder8 0/ tire Reproductive Organs in Childhood. among other things. HOn Bemiss lee Georre H. The Tranmrission 0/ Li/e Counsels On tire Nature and Hygiene 0/ the Mt16CUIlne Function (Philadelphia.. 2 • The price of masturbation is clearly heavy. they probably reveal delusions of a SUSpicious or obscene nature . p. Briti6h MediCIII JOUI'1UlI. "Ibid. or saunter lazily about. Bemiss wrote of how masturbation brought on epilepsy in The New Orleans Journal oj Medicine (1869). As he grew older. He tied it.tmI1n Hetdlh and Dl8eo8e /rom In/ancy to Old Age (New York. In The Pathology oj Mind. lost to all healthy feeling and human interests. Although he wrote on many subjects. When not occupied with official duties. 1865). Frederick Hollick claimed that masturbation caused baldness and premature whitening of the hair. 92. Maudsley became more and more interested in medico-legal issues and an advocate of more enlightened policies in the treatment of the insane. M. .272 Aibion knew him remarked that his sympathies would have been wider and his well known pessimism tempered had he children of his own. Youth. they reach the last and worst stage of degradation.. NapbeyJ.M. They sit or lie all day. he described the results of self-abuse in glowing terms: When. from year to year. In 1907. "William Acton. The Pathology 0/ Mind (New York. p. William Acton assailed masturbation..000 to the London County Council for a mental hospital and the Maudsley Hospital on Denmark Hill is testimony to his largess.D. In 1865. and Mott. p. 22 To some extent. 21 Professor S. '"Mawisley. 161. and Dr. he gave £30.. 1849). by stating that Henry Mauds1ey was a product of his time and that he was in good company in expressing his dislike of self-abuse. p. slovenly and dirty: if they enter into any conversations. Maudsley spent his time writing and his output was impressive. they sink into an apathetic state of moody and morose self-absorption with extreme loss of mental power. muttering or smiling to themselves. Maudsley was an anti-onanist. So they linger on pitiable wrecks of degradation. S7. 4S9. Maudsley was free to devote himself to work. becoming weaker in mind and body until they die from complete nervous prostration or from some inner current disease to which they fall easy victim at last. and psychologists. 35 (1888): p. and mental degeneracy. In 1888. and it is the reasons for this assumption that must be examined. and had assumed cause and effect. 162. The sense of moral relations or so-c:aIled moral fedina. and criminaiity. should have assumed such importance. Maudsley had observed insane people masturbating. "Remarks on Crime and Criminals. Natural criminals were endowed with attributes which programmed them for a life of crime. . was the prime mover. Nurture. therefore they are the rust to disappear in mental deaeneration. Yet this explanation for Maudsley and others does not explain why masturbation. did he study hairy abstentionists? No. Natural criminals. not nature. above all other observable phenomenon in the insane. but of ideology. Maudsley wrote extensively about the causes of crime with special emphasis on criminal types. moral. were victims of heredity or some form of physical. which is in the literal sense of IIlfkiltding or undoing of mind. It was assumed. Maudsley wrote an article in The Journal 0/ Mental Science titled. On the Causes o/Idiocy (reprinted. The natural criminal was first and foremost a product of deficient moral sensibility. or conversely. being the least stable. . reflecting a kind of mental backsliding to a lower stage on the evolutionary scale. the category which most interested Maudsley. G. Nor does it explain the links between masturbation and the wide variety of disease tied to self-abuse. As Maudsley put it. and when they are stripped off the more primitive and more "For example. see S. the linkage between masturbation and evil consequence was not a product of observation. For example. 1972). The nineteenth century saw the growth and development of the asylum and of the scientific study of mental illness. doctors. New Yark. 24 Occasional criminals committed crimes because of their social situation and perhaps because of temptation. certain common themes emerge which link together sexuality. his conception of evil. By focusing on Maudsley's fears. and the rme qualities of reason and conduct that are correlates with it are the latest and the hiahest products of mental evolution. there was some empirical justification." in which he divided criminals into two categories.Masturbation and Insanity 273 Maudsley's views on masturbation simply reflected the conventional wisdom of the day. The sight of an insane individual masturbating had a powerful impact on asylum attendants.o77le JowNll Q/ Melttai Scierrce. ZJ It led to the easy assumption that seminal loss had created the deteriorating mental condition. Did Hollick watch hairlines recede in direct proportion to seminal expenditure. Howe. insanity. Maudsley and other psychologists had many opportunities to observe inmates of asylums in various states of deterioration. masturbating: that is. Underneath the thin veneer of civilization there lurks the primitive savagery of a lower evolutionary state. the natural madman is characterized by an inability to reach a higher stage of mental and moral development. 1900) p. p."26 His portrait of the degenerate natural criminal noted the growth "of simple and coarse anti-social impulses" and that the "moral treachery" of one generation "may come out in the criminality of the next":that is. The metaphor used to describe potential criminality is also interesting. Take away this veneer from the individual or the society and we are back to "premoral ages. When degeneration sets in. "It is well known how hard a thing it is sometimes to distinguish between these two forms of human degeneracy. "21 As with the natural criminal. it is clear that he believed that there was a "natural" madman who resembled the natural criminal. "Ibid. for they are the products of genetic deficiencies. he stated unequivocally that "crime and madness are the active outcome of anti-social tendencies. 21. "and it will ever be impossible to raise a stable superstructure of intellect and character on bad natural foundations." he wrote in Responsibility in Mental Disease. it is the first to go. but they are "engaged almost exclusively in the narrow sphere of their immediate interests" and "are sometimes sharpened by continual exercise there to a fine edge of low. "Maudsley. "No training in the world will avail to elicit grapes from thorns or figs from thistles. 27 Maudsley's portrait of the natural criminal emphasizes immediate. it is self interest at the expense of a moral code that embraces social responsibility." adding. natural criminals are born.274 Albion stable passions are exposed-naked and not ashamed. Responsibility in Mental Disease (New York. "Maudsley. The Pathology of Mind. 100. "Ibid. this moral veneer is unstable." There are a number of related themes in this partial portrait of the natural criminal. just as they were in the premoral ages of animals and human life on earth. fox-like cunning. "29 Although Maudsley never used the term. narrow interests. Morality is "stripped off" and passions are "exposed-naked and not ashamed. In The Pathology of Mind. He remains in a halfway house where animality overwhelms those higher faculties that are the essence of civilization. . not made. Maudsley observed. "Ibid." Maudsley notes that natural criminals may still be intellectually acute." Further. Maudsley placed heavy emphasis on heredity. Ties between criminality and madness in Maudsley's work are explicit. Like the natural criminal. p. adding that "In a lunatic asylum some are found who are under a permanent passion of love . spirituality and monomania. "Ibid. According to him. . It was the last-monomania-which most frightened Maudsley. There are several aspects of Maudsley's conception of passion that are noteworthy. while the race grows more and more."31 Along with anger and religious enthusiasm as debilitating passions." The enemies of sanity are enthusiasm. It is a product of the lack of intellectual and moral self-control which causes overconcentration of the incorporeal.OMaudsley. pp. 46.Masturbation and Insanity With the progress of mankind to a higher stage of evolution. . and an increased quantity as well as an increased variety of mental derangement will bear witness that the individual perishes. to the number of insane people in society. the spiritual. "The ardor of love is a temporary insanity. religious organizations that stressed "emotional excitement" were adding to mental instability and. " Returning to suspect religious enthusiasm. Appearing in virtually every article and book Maudsley wrote on insanity are innumerable references to the individual who has cut himself off from larger societal concerns to wallow in intense preoccupation with himself. 130-131. Maudsley felt that some madmen "under the sway of a permanent passion" were unable to discern "objective realities. Over and over again Maudsley finds two characteristics of insanity." Maudsley wrote in 1863. of the insane temperament. Maudsley put love. Passion is not only emotional enthusiasm but also monomania. he argued that some Christian saints suffered from an excess of love directed towards imaginary rather than real beings. it is necessary that it be so if there is any innate or temporary susceptibility to disturbing mental cause. the weaker members who cannot bear the strain of progress will fall by the wayside." Lovers in asylums. The first is passion: insanity is caused by "sensual indulgence and the exhaustion consequent thereupon. In . Maudsley added "converse in words of endearing affection with lovers whom no one can see but themselves . .'· 275 Similarities between criminality and insanity extend beyond heredity and descriptions of drop-outs from evolutionary progress." while the passionate lover "worships an ideal of his imagination rather than an actual being. there are correlative possibilities of retrograde change. which are in effect his definition of madness. therefore. Th Pathology oj Mind.. In a long article titled "Delusions" Maudsley added.. For the passionate individual cannot escape from forever dwelling on the all consuming idee fIXe.. " It was this fear of passion of all kinds that turned Maudsley into an ardent foe of religious enthusiasm. "It is well that devotion should be calm and sober at all times. and the imaginary. . "Maudsley. never learned self-control. Maudsley asserted that "man al- ways is in reality happiest when he is under some restraint. 6 (1859-60): 356. and made a reasonable creature. self-indulgence had led him to unhappiness and death. out of harmony and unity with it. "Edpr Allen Poe. and an imagination habitually running riot that at last ran mad. 298. generated in a monstrous feeling of self." Journal 0/ Mental Science. The essence of mad and of bad wrong doing."J1 "Maudsley. "Delusions." The Pathology of Mind. an authentic literary genius." Journal 0/ Mental Scimce. 345. dreaming itself self-sufficing should forget its dependence on the whole and start life on its own account." 33 This theme is well illustrated in Maudsley's essays on Edgar Allen Poe and Emmanuel Swedenborg. Poe." The morally insane individual sees everything "from the standpoint of the narrowest selftshness." Journal of Mental Science. " As a counterpoint to Poe's disastrous life."H Emanuel Swedenborg was for Maudsley a similar case for he lacked "intellectual self-restraint. as one might guess. 185. yet Maudsley was mainly interested in showing how passion.. "On Love of Ufe. Maudsley speaks of "great self-feeling and vanity" and being "engrossed in the affectations of self. In effect. and most importantly. the whole working in him and he in it."36 For both Swedenborg and Poe the consequences of moral and intellectual monomania was madness. p. that which makes the one disease and the other crime. The Pathology of Mind." In the end he displayed "a self-sufficiency knowing no bounds" as well as "preposterous pretensions of monomania. and accomplished in the most sinful. "Maudsley. "Emanuel Swedenbora. alienated from it. Maudsley made this concern explicit. they seem to look upon the world as a place created for them to play their pranks in . is that it is anti-social: the individual being very much in the social what a diseased organ is in the physiological organism. There are men who. They were guilty of "shirking duty. 7 (1860): 208.. 23. Maudsley viewed suicide as the ultimate form of selftshness. 344. 9 (1863): 21.276 Albion Separated from the social organism of which he is element or unit. "Mauds1ey. Only cowards commit suicide. like Poe have such intense self-feeling. in fact too individual. Poe clearly fascinated Maudsley and he was not unsympathetic to the American writer in whom he recognized uncommon qualities. In describing the insane temperament." Journal of Mental Science. "Mauds1ey. 15 (1869): p. pp. something separate. cannot realize the fact of a not-self. .. the individual could no more live and function than an organ or a structural element of the body which." when he is "forced into self-denial. according to Maudsley. Maudsley once noted. "Ibid. because willful ignorance. the man who lacked self restraint was on the road to suicide and. Maudsley addressed the Medical Psychological Association in 1871 about the 'deterioration of character" produced "by a life of mean and petty deceit and grasping selfishness in business. 1871.319. ~otistictlily insensible of the claims of others upon him and of his duties to them. abandoned to indolent and solitary seU-brooding. 495."JI For Maudsley. ·"Insanity and Its Treatment. "Maudsley. and intense self-absorption.. not only for the individual but for his descendants.. It profoundly threatened both the individual and society. Asceticism on the other hand. a characteristic of all sexual activity." Address at the Annual General Meeting of the Medico-PsycholQlical Assoc:iatiOll. I t JOfIIftIII of Metllll ScieIce. both were mad. madness." and attacked the "single minded pursuit of riches as a cause of moral and mental degeneracy.. IIypocllondrillctJlly occupied with IIis senstltions and IIis bodily functions. p.Masturbation and Insanity 277 Paralleling Maudsley's dislike of religious enthusiasm was a profound distaste for religious asceticism. and ultimately. without thought or care of others . "On Some of the Causes of Insanity. enthusiasm leads to passion and insanity. It was the pathway to crime and insanity and threatened not only the individual's own body but the social body as well. 20. he displays a wz"ity and self-s!ifJic~ncy quite unbecoming his qe and position.. exacts the constant indulgence of others without the least thouaht of obliaation or aratitude.. if "Maudsley. The patient is completely wrapped up in self. leads to "an exaggerated selfhood . 17 (1871): p •. it is easy to understand his hatred of masturbation. Once we understand Maudsley's fear of passion and selfishness which can lead to criminality. in JOfU1ttlI of Mmtlll Scietce. Royal CoUeae of Physicians. the nineteenth century capitalist's pursuit of wealth was similar to the early Christian's pursuit of salvation. The most striking features in this variety of mental derangement are the intense selfishness of self-conceit that are shoWn. and is apt. It was the one sexual act that symbolized passion. Those who rolled in thorns and retreated into deserts had their modern day equivalent in businessmen who rolled in money and sought personal salvation in riches. TIte htltology of MiItd. 12 (1867): p. or both. 4IMaudsley."3' Maudsley had earlier made the point even more explicit by advising men that marriage to the daughter of an insane person was better than marriage to "the daughter of one who had lived a life of hard selfishness. Both types were anti-social. something like madness. . 3 Auaust. One quotation from Maudsley on the subject of the insanity of self-abuse will illustrate this common theme. As we have seen. both were selfish. "40 To Maudsley. this fear of religious asceticism as a kind of madness had its modern counterpart in the acquisitive grasping businessman who loses all sense of social responsibility. referred to the physical dangers of spendiDl sperm in a proflipte manner. "Quoted in Steven Marcus. crime. The Other Victorians (New York. They work alone or they sit alone. the Onanist was dangerous. He also stressed that masturbation ruined men for leXuai activity in marriage and most importantly.452-53. 42 Taking solace in his own body and fmding gratification in orgasm and fantasy rather than in society and useful work. the Onanist withdrew from the world and lost himself in self-love and illusion-and that was madness. or scholarly individual who retreated from social intercourse. They were linked because they were solitary vices. The insane person withdrew from the world and lost himself in delusion and anti-social behavior. Most significant in Maudsley's writing is the common source of masturbation and insanity. The masturbator was a sexual hermit. While a discussion of other nineteenth-century anti-onanist doctors is beyond the scope of this essay. the patients of this group live alone in the midst of many . 20. "See Maudsley's unflattering discussion of Simon Stylites in "Delusions. and masturbation as selfabsorption and self-abuse might have been Maudsley's way of doing battle with the concerns of his own life. It was no accident that Maudsley and other nineteenth-century anti-onanists emphasized the dangers of solitude and found the symptoms of madnessmasturbator's face-in the shy. 1964). Personally a loner who had difficulties making friends and fmding popularity. and a heinous sin against the body politic. or are actually hostile to him. a nineteenth-century equivalent of Simon Stylites.'· (italics mine) Masturbation. At the very least. 18. .. Concern with madness. Acton's work gives credence to many of the current theories about mastlD'bation phobia in the nineteenth century. Maudsley's own life probably influenced his views on the dangers of antisocial behavior." Jou"". it was madness. however did stress evils other than the solitary nature of the act. it should be noted that Maudsley's fears were not unique.278 Albion he gets not the consideration which he claims. It was the supreme narcissistic act. Maudsley believed. It should be emphasized that there was no casual relation between masturbation and madness: for Maudsley. the retreat into selfish enjoyment of one's own body without reference to the social order."·J ··Maudsley. William Acton described masturbational insanity in words reminiscent of Maudsley: "Engaged in no social diversion.. p. was evil because it symbolized antisocial behavior. Acton. The Pathology of Mind. He showed far greater concern with the impact of mastlD'bation on children than did Maudsley. his fear of solitary vices may have reflected fear of the very life style to which his personality and his social experiences had condemned him.1 of Mental Science. pp.. p. retiring. this study of Maudlley Ibows that an in-depth analysis of many writers on onanistn is necessary before any final c:oadlllioa on fear of telf abuse can be reached. to declare that his family are unfeeling and do not understand him. but not the growth of auto-eroticism. and while he had great respect for home and family. or onanism are viewed as evil because they are selfish and anti-social. "Charles Rosenberg. There is no evidence. "Sexuality. He did discuss the question of the increase in insanity in a number of articles. "44 The Maudsley case. There is. as Charles Rosenberg has pointed out. call them into question. so circumstanced as to almost inevitably be ruined . Maudsley attacked those businessmen who relentlessly pursued wealth. .. 2S (May. Jackson congratulated those boys who were social enough to masturbate together: "It is not.Masturbation and Insanity 279 In America. In a remarkable statement on the subject of masturbation. Alone and uncompanioned. If the sexual and economic saving hypothesis holds true for Maudsley. Maudsley believed in seminal saving. James Jackson also stressed the dangers of masturbation as a solitary act: "The solitarily vicious person is like the solitary villain. the usual nineteenth-century concern with the effect of masturbation on young people. . yet sexual control and fear of masturbation were of much less concern for everyone in earlier centuries. with its link between middle class attitudes toward financial and sexual thrift. . the middle class had been around for a long time. criminality. nonetheless. he broods over his habitudes and pursues his courses until he is incurably diseased or depraved .. 60. Cass and Rol~ in 19th Century America. but his attitude towards money was ambigious." American Quarterly. " Once again. The Protestant ethic and individual responsibility were an important part of Maudsley's thinking. that Maudsley felt that nineteenth-century men and women were manipulating their sexual organs more frequently than in previous centuries. His portrait of the miser who cuts himself off from larger social concerns is not favorable. while not disproving current theories of the reasons for concern with masturbation in the nineteenth century does. The Sexual Organism and its Hetlltliful Management (Boston. to be deplored that boys who are in the habit of masturbating perform the act in each other's presence. "45 By the mid-nineteenth century. but is rather considered as a favorable symptom in their cases.. and it is possible that he was responding to extended adolescence and enforced sexual abstinence. he should have emphasized the virtues of both economic and seminal thrift. those theories which link sexual repression with middle class values present "grave chronological problems. In any case. 1862). therefore. p. insanity. his focus was not youth centered. Dr. . 1973): 152. in Maudsley's writing. but these values predate intense concern with "James Jackson. Maudsley had no children. Still. his concerns were largely with the masturbatory sins of one generation causing decay and degeneration in the next. Also problematic is the spending and saving hypothesis. for example. 06 Status anomaly does not surface in Maudsley's work. Mary Douglas has argued that the human body is a symbol of society." p. The Victorian Frame of Mind. insanity. Houghton. Paradoxically. the farther apart they drifted in any social or spiritual sense. "depends on the preoccupation with social exits and entrances. 77. so characteristic of modern man.280 Albion masturbation."47 We might add that modes of sexuality. and mental deterioration in the mid. "Richard Altick. pp. "49 Altick's phrase "competitive turmoil" is particularly reminiscent of Maudsley. anonymous strangers. for like Carlyle he was greatly concerned with the evils of industrialization in Victorian England. and bodily control is a symbol of social control. he operated within the confines of an ideology which permeated his views of criminality. ." Walter Houghton agrees in his description of Victorian England as fostering "the feeling of isolation and loneliness. for mutual good or else for mutual misery. As E. "Masturbational Insanity.. Interest in bodily apertures.and late-nineteenth century. I. Richard Altick has summed up the conditions spawned by urbanization in the following description of city life. Maudsley's work. bent only on surviving the competitive turmoil . Hare has pointed out. Natural Symbols: Explanations in Cosmology (New York. "Mary Douglas. the closer people were brought together physically. America. It was Carlyle who observed. Maudsley's writings suggest that it might be more fruitful to concentrate on the fear of passion and selfishness that permeated views of sexual depravity. His early writings show the enormous influence of Thomas Carlyle. Although Maudsley spent most of his life writing about insanity as a medical doctor and a scientist. p. these were all cut from the same cloth. For Maudsley. and that forbidden modes of sexuality reflect larger societal concerns. 12. H. Professor Douglas notes. 1973). Perhaps worst of all. as living "Hare.. criminality. "Walter E. as in mill or slum. 1830-1870 (New Haven.. and Europe in the nineteenth century. This seems to have been true for Maudsley. like other Victorian writers. reflected the decline of traditional society and the rise of urbanization and industrialization. Catholic Frenchmen were as concerned with masturbation as their Protestant neighbors across the English Channel. escape routes and invasions. a condition unique to England. i7. and sexuality. p. 1957). "Men cannot live isolated: we are all bound together. and in turmoil the passion that could destroy man and society. have high symbolic content. 1970). 70. who saw in competition the seeds of selfishness and anti-social behavior. in the midst of crowds they were alone. Victorian People and Ideas (New York. indifferent to their fellows' fate. as one of the most intimate of all bodily activities. it was crowded with rootless. that the ethical progress of society depends.42S.arwin's thinking as direct competition. 52 Both men stressed the benefits of cooperation within society albeit for different reasons. (New York. It was for him a call for humility and altruism: "The scientific spirit of the present age preaches self renunciation. For Huxley the struggle for existence stopped at the water's edge because human society depended on cooperation not conflict. p. 296. "50 Like Carlyle. 22. He wrote in "Evolution and Ethics": "Let us understand .. 19(3). Yet in many respects. his views on society were not far removed from those of Darwin. H... 83. the age of the earth and the tiny place of a single human being in the order of things was a constant reminder of man's insignificance." Journal 0/ Mental Science. "Howard E. Gruber. 186. and it is an irremediable misfortune to him who imagines that he is . p... He shared with Carlyle a deep pessimism about the condition and the fate of man. Maudsley was deeply distressed by laissez-Iaire practices which he believed had contributed to the alienation and the selfishness of modern life. and Maudsley. With his organic view of society and his hostility to selfishness. ''T. S4. p. nOn Huxley's pessimism see William Irvine Apes. still less in running away from it. Huxley had also been greatly influenced by Carlyle and he shared with Maudsley a devotion to the ideal of hard work and the same pessimistic view of mankind.'· T. 1927). Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays. and Victorians (New York. "Delusions. but in combating it. "Emanuel Swedenborg. While best known as an apostle of lassiez faire. Altruism was the antidote to chaos and madness. 19S5). Maudsley was in opposition to those Social Darwinists who praised the competitive struggle for existence and equated combat with progress. H.Masturbation and Insanity 281 nerves in the same body." Journal 0/ Mental Science."53 For Maudsley the size of the universe. p. p." and Maudsley who concurred in his essay on Swedenborg: "But no man is self-sufficing in this universe. 1964). and other foes of nineteenth-century capitalism. Huxley. "Cooperation among members of the same species and symbiotic relationships among members of different species were as much a part of D. Ruskin. The only way out for the individual was altruism and emotional detachment which conquered seltbood. Past and Present (New York. not on imitating the cosmic process. While there is ambiguity in Darwin.'''4 Maudsley's call for cooperation brought him close to at least one side of Herbert Spencer's views on man's relationship to society. there is in Spencer an organic view of society "'Thomas Carlyle. Darwin on Man: A Psychological Study 0/ Scientific Creativity (New York. Huxley and even Herbert Spencer. "Maudsley. Angels. . p. as Howard Gruber has argued. Function. dishonesties. excesses.282 Albion that was very similar to MaudsleY's. p.!5 Indeed Spencer. and Evolution (London.. p." Journal of Mental Science.. Herbert Spencer: Structure. Carniero. suicide. He was a clear-cut representative of what Gertrude Himmelfarb has labeled the Victorian Angst: "The ultimate abnegation beyond food.. "Herbert Spencer.. "A Theory of Population Deduced from the General Law of Animal fertility. 309. 1968). Huxley. selfish onanist was a symbol of catastrophe. and cruelties ." The Westminister Review. the fear remained the same: Society must be protected from passion and selfishness-from atomization. 485-86. or masturbation were involved. n. furtive. or whether they shall be prompted by the egoistic passions for the gratification of self?" For Maudsley. was the abnegation of self . "Maudsiey. The individual's choice was clear. even sex. . 1 (1852): pp. 1967). "Gertrude Himmelfarb. "" For Maudsley. insanity. improprieties.s. Victorian Minds (New York. ruminating on the future of mankind wrote that the requirements of the social state must take precendence in the future before "crimes. diseases. "See Stanislaw Andreski. and Robert L. Herbert Spencer: The Evolution of Society (Chicago. the lonely. and other eminent Victorians there was no ambiguity in Maudsley when the evil of selfhood was the issue. pleasure."" Unlike Spencer. 23. To live for others or to live for self. ed. that is the question: -whether the actions shall be excited by the altruistic feeling for the welfare of others. this abnegation was the road of sanity and whether criminality. dress. "Delusions. can cease. 1971)...