in a general sense, denotes a person who cheats by a fictitious character.

Religious Impostors, are such as falsely pretend to an extraordinary commission from heaven; and who terrify and abuse the people with false denunciations of judgments. These are punishable in the temporal courts with fine, imprisonment, and infamous corporal punishment.

IMPOBENCE, or IMPOBENCY, in general, denotes want of strength, power, or means, to perform anything.

Divines and philosophers distinguish two sorts of impotence; natural and moral. The first is a want of some physical principle, necessary to an action; or where a being is absolutely defective, or not free and at liberty to act. The second only imports a great difficulty; as a strong habit to the contrary, a violent passion, or the like.

IMPOBENCY is a term more particularly used for a natural inability to coition. Impotence with respect to men is the same as sterility in women; that is, an inability of propagating the species. There are many causes of impotence; as, a natural defect in the organs of generation, which seldom admits of a cure; accidents or diseases; and in such cases the impotence may or may not be remedied, according as these are curable or otherwise.—The most common causes are, early and immoderate venery, or the venereal disease. We have instances, however, of untimely generation in men by an impediment to the ejection of the semen in coition, from a wrong direction which the orifice at the verumontanum got, whereby the seed was thrown up into the bladder. M. Petit cured one patient under such a difficulty of emission, by making an incision like to that commonly made in the great operation for the stone.

On this subject we have some curious and original observations by the late Mr John Hunter in his Treatise on the Venereal Disease*. He considers impotence as depending upon two causes. One he refers to the mind; the other to the organs.

1. As to impotence depending upon the mind, he observes, that as the parts of generation are not necessary for the existence or support of the individual, but have a reference to something else in which the mind has a principal concern; so a complete action in those parts cannot take place without a perfect harmony of body and of mind: that is, there must be both a power of body and disposition of mind; for the mind is subject to a thousand caprices, which affect the actions of those parts.

2. Copulation is an act of the body, the spring of which is in the mind; but it is not volition: and according to the state of the mind, so is the act performed. To perform this act well, the body should be in health, and the mind should be perfectly confident of the powers of the body; the mind should be in a state entirely disengaged from every thing else: it should have no difficulties, no fears, no apprehensions, not even an anxiety to perform the act well; for even this anxiety is a state of mind different from what should prevail; there should not be even a fear that the mind itself may find a difficulty at the time the act should be performed. Perhaps no function of

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* P. 207. &c. ad edit. Impotency, the machine depends so much upon the state of the mind as this.

"The will and reasoning faculty have nothing to do with this power; they are only employed in the act, so far as voluntary parts are made use of; and if they ever interfere, which they sometimes do, it often produces another state of mind which destroys that which is proper for the performance of the act; it produces a desire, a wish, a hope, which are all only diffidence and uncertainty, and create in the mind the idea of a possibility of the want of success, which destroys the proper state of mind or necessary confidence.

"There is perhaps no act in which a man feels himself more interested, or is more anxious to perform well; his pride being engaged in some degree, which if within certain bounds would produce a degree of perfection in an act depending upon the will, or an act in voluntary parts; but when it produces a state of mind contrary to that state on which the perfection of the act depends, a failure must be the consequence.

"The body is not only rendered incapable of performing this act by the mind being under the above influence, but also by the mind being, though perfectly confident of its power, yet conscious of an impropriety in performing it; this, in many cases, produces a state of mind which shall take away all power. The state of a man's mind respecting his filter takes away all power. A conscientious man has been known to lose his powers on finding the woman he was going to be connected with unexpectedly a virgin.

"Shedding tears arises entirely from the state of the mind, although not so much a compound action as the act in question; for none are so weak in body that they cannot shed tears; it is not so much a compound action of the mind and strength of body joined, as the other act is; yet if we are afraid of shedding tears, or are desirous of doing it, and that anxiety is kept up through the whole of an affecting scene, we certainly shall not shed tears, or at least not so freely as would have happened from our natural feelings.

"From this account of the necessity of having the mind independent respecting the act, we must see that it may very often happen that the state of mind will be such as not to allow the animal to exert its natural powers; and every failure increases the evil. We must also see from this state of the case, that this act must be often interrupted; and the true cause of this interruption not being known, it will be laid to the charge of the body or want of powers. As these cases do not arise from real inability, they are to be carefully distinguished from such as do; and perhaps the only way to distinguish them is, to examine into the state of mind respecting this act. So trifling often is the circumstance which shall produce this inability depending on the mind, that the very desire to please shall have that effect, as in making the woman the sole object to be gratified.

"Cases of this kind we see every day; one of which I shall relate as an illustration of this subject, and also of the method of cure.—A gentleman told me, that he had lost his virility. After above an hour's investigation of the case, I made out the following facts: that he had at unnecessary times strong erections, which showed that he had naturally this power; that the erections were accompanied with desire, which are all the natural powers wanted; but that there was still a defect somewhere, which I supposed to be from the mind. I inquired if all women were alike to him? his answer was, No; some women he could have connection with as well as ever. This brought the defect, whatever it was, into a smaller compass; and it appeared that there was but one woman that produced this inability, and that it arose from a desire to perform the act with this woman well; which desire produced in the mind a doubt or fear of the want of success, which was the cause of the inability of performing the act. As this arose entirely from the state of the mind produced by a particular circumstance, the mind was to be applied to for the cure; and I told him that he might be cured, if he could perfectly rely on his own power of self-denial. When I explained what I meant, he told me that he could depend upon every act of his will or resolution. I then told him, that, if he had a perfect confidence in himself in that respect, he was to go to bed with this woman, but first promise to himself that he would not have any connection with her for six nights, let his inclinations and powers be what they would; which he engaged to do, and also to let me know the result. About a fortnight after, he told me, that this resolution had produced such a total alteration in the state of his mind, that the power soon took place; for instead of going to bed with the fear of inability, he went with fears that he should be possessed with too much desire, too much power, so as to become uneasy to him; which really happened; for he would have been happy to have shortened the time; and when he had once broke the spell, the mind and powers went on together, and his mind never returned to its former state."

2. Of impotency from a want of proper correspondence between the actions of the different organs. Our author, in a former part of his Treatise, when considering the diseases of the urethra and bladder, had remarked, that every organ in an animal body, without exception, was made of different parts, whose functions or actions were totally different from one another, although all tending to produce one ultimate effect. In all such organs, when perfect (he observes), there is a succession of motions, one naturally arising out of the other, which in the end produces the ultimate effect; and an irregularity alone in these actions will constitute disease, at least will produce very disagreeable effects, and often totally frustrate the intention of the organ. This principle Mr Hunter, on the present occasion, applies to the "actions of the testicles and penis: for we find that an irregularity in the actions of these parts sometimes happens in men, producing impotence; and something similar probably may be one cause of barrenness in women.

"In men, the parts subservient to generation may be divided into two; the essential and the accessory. The testicles are the essential; the penis, &c., the accessory. As this division arises from their uses or actions in health, which exactly correspond with one another, a want of exactness in the correspondence or susceptibility of those actions may also be divided into two: where the actions are reversed, the accessory taking place without the first or essential, as in erections of the penis, where neither the mind nor the testicles are stimulated to action; and the second is where the testicles perform