Note 48 — III. GENERAL PATHOLOGY.[28]

In the Jahrbücher für Psychologie, ii, p. 128, Schäfer (Jena) refers to the reports of two cases by A. Payer. In the first case states of great sexual excitement were induced by the sight of battles or of paintings of them; in the second, by cruel torturing of small animals (vide Case 24). It is added: “The pleasure of battle and murder is so predominantly an attribute of the male sex throughout the animal kingdom, that there can be no question about the close relation existing between this side of the masculine character and male sexuality. I believe, too, that by unprejudiced observation I can show that, in men who are absolutely normal mentally and physically, the first indefinite and incomprehensible precursors of sexual excitement may be induced by reading exciting scenes of the chase and war,—i.e., they give rise to unconscious longings for a kind of satisfaction in warlike games (wrestling), in which, also, the fundamental sexual impulse to the most perfect and intense contact with a companion is expressed, with the more or less clearly defined secondary thought of conquest.”