e _character_ of the
injury varies with the boy's own special weaknesses and tendencies. If
he is naturally shy and timid, it makes him shyer and more timid. If
he is stupid and lazy, it makes him more stupid and lazy. If he is
inclined to consumption or other disease, it destroys his power of
resisting such disease. In extreme cases only does it actually change
an able boy into a stupid one, an athletic boy into a weak one, and a
happy boy into a discontented one; but in all cases it _weakens_ every
power a boy possesses. Its most prominent results are these: loss of
will-power and self-reliance, shyness, nervousness and irritability,
failure of the reasoning powers and memory, laziness of body and mind,
a diseased fondness for girls, deceitfulness. Of these results, the
loss of will-power leaves the boy a prey not only to the temptations
of impurity, but to every other form of temptation: the deceitfulness
destroys his self-respect and turns his life into a sham."

Of incomparably greater importance than Acton's wide but abnormal
experience and my own narrow but normal experience is the experience
of Dr. Clement Dukes, which is very wide and perfectly normal. No man
has probably been in so good a position for forming an estimate as he
has been. Dr. Dukes thus sums up his opinion: "The harm which results
is moral, intellectual, and physical. _Physically_ it is a frequent
drain at a critical time of life when nature is providing for growth
and development, and is ill able to bear it; it is a powerful nervous
shock to the system ill-prepared to meet it.... It also causes
muscular and mental debility, loss of spirit and manliness, and
occasional insanity, suicide and homicide. Moreover it leads to
further uncontrollable passions in early manhood.... Further, this
vice enfeebles the _intellectual_ powers, inducing lethargy and
obtuseness, and incapacity for hard mental work. And last, and most of
all, it is an _immorality_ which stains the whole character and
undermines the life."

In this passage Dr. Dukes refers to the intellectual and moral harm of
self-abuse as well as to its physical consequences. Intimately
connected as these are with one another, I am here attempting to give
them separate treatment. It is, however, impossible to treat perverted
sex-knowledge and self-abuse separately; for though in young boys they
are found independently of one another, and sometimes co-exist in
elder boys without any intimate con