A Solemn Appeal - James White

genital organs themselves; but always throws an
influence equal to the intensity of the affection,
over the whole nervous domain; disturbing all the
functions depending on them for vital energy,
which is thereby increased upon, or distracted
from, them--and if this excitement is frequently
repeated or long continued, it inevitably induces an
increased degree of irritability and debility and
relaxation generally, throughout the whole nervous
and muscular tissues, and especially the nerves of
organic life. And hence, those lascivious DAY-
DREAMS and amorous reveries, in which young
people--and especially the idle and the voluptuous,
and the sedentary and the nervous--are exceedingly
apt to indulge, are often the sources of general
debility, effeminacy, disordered functions, and
premature disease, and even premature death,
without the actual exercise of the general organs!
Indeed, this unchastity of thought--this adultery of
the mind--is the beginning of immeasurable evil to
the human family."[1]
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