The genital organs may be observed in three states; the first state is that of _rest_. They then merely live, present no special sensation and do not proceed to the act of venery. In the second state they become the seat, the focus of more or less vivid sensations, and which have for a special character to invite and to constrain with more or less power to the act of venery. In animals, this state is called _rutting_: in our species, it has no special name, except when existing to a very great degree, and then it constitutes a disease, termed _Satyriasis_ or _nymphomania_: I shall call it the state of _excitement_. The third is that of _action_: it is the state in which the genital organs are, when they perform their special functions, when they accomplish the act of venery. They then do not simply live as in the first state, or feel as in the second; but they act, and afterward return to one of the preceding states, and particularly to the first: they rest. These are the three aspects under which we shall examine these organs. To render our remarks more intelligible, we will give a few definitions. The power of bringing the genital organs into a state of action is the _venereal_ power: this when put in action is the _act of venery_. If this act results from the concurrence of the two sexes, it is _coition_. If it be caused by solitary manipulation, it then receives divers names; the terms most used are _masturbation_, or _onanism_. The act of venery, whether it does or does not result from the concurrence of the two sexes may or may not be injurious. When it is injurious in any degree there is then _venereal excess, abuse of the genital organs_. This sense is the only one attached in this book, to this mode of expression: for if in a moral and religious point of view the simple fact of coition in some cases and of onanism in every case be a vice, an excess, an abuse, the physician should apply these terms only to cases where the health is injured.
§ 1. INFLUENCE OF THE GENITAL ORGANS CONSIDERED IN A STATE OF REST.
It might be thought that when these organs are at rest, when they are neither used nor abused, when the venereal sense is as it were asleep in them, and they seem occupied only with their own development, and nutrition, it might seem I say that these organs take little or no part in what is going on around them: but this is a mistake. We shall see that this dull life which then occupies them is sufficient to make them a powerful focus of action; that all the other organs owe to them a part of their mode of existence their form and substance. By this we can judge of what the genital system is capable, when excited, and when by the hand or otherwise it is brought to the highest degree of activity.