A Solemn Appeal - James White

alone. All the mental faculties partake of the
general blight. Perception is made dull and obtuse,
the reasoning powers are blunted. Nothing is seen
clearly--nothing is understood perfectly. The whole
mental man is sunk; and this, more or less,
according to the degree of venereal abuse. To all
this the reflecting reader will assent.
3. From debility the mind often sinks into
idiocy. We have already seen that Dr. Woodward
reckons idiocy among the consequences of solitary
vice. And it is no marvel that whatever induces
mental lassitude and debility, should finally induce
vacant idiocy itself. The tendency is all that way.
"Last fall," says the author of "Facts and Important
Information," etc., "I saw a young woman in a
town in Massachusetts who had made herself an
idiot by masturbation. A most miserable creature
she was. Her looks and gestures were
indescribable; licentiousness, like a foul plague,
had blasted everything beautiful in her face,
everything noble and lovely in her soul." Says Dr.
Clarke, by this vice the mind is 'often debilitated
even to idiotism.'
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