Chapter XXI

The homosexual and pseudo-homosexual phenomena described in the preceding chapters constitute a far from universal variety of sexual impulse, but “algolagnia” is much commoner. This name was introduced by Schrenck-Notzing as a general term for the phenomena of sadism and masochism, since these two sexual aberrations are closely related one to the other.

Algolagnia, or painful lasciviousness, if we exclude from consideration its most extreme manifestations, such as lust-murder and suicide from lust, belongs unquestionably to the most widely diffused of sexual aberrations; indeed, in its slighter forms it is almost universal. An experienced woman told Havelock Ellis[588] that she had known only one single man who was entirely free from sadistic lust; and, on the other hand, there are few women in whose sexuality no algolagnistic phenomena are demonstrable. This is natural, for algolagnia, differing in this respect from other sexual aberrations, has the deepest biological roots. Its nucleus, pleasure in the pain of others or in one’s own pain (the term “pain” being here used in the very widest significance, both physical and mental), is an elementary phenomenon of amatory activity. “Love is in its very nature pain,” we read in the “Divan” of the Persian poet Rûmi. It is certain that we have here to do with an anthropological phenomenon, one that is normal within wide limits. Algolagnia plays the greatest rôle in the individual life of single human beings and in the civilized life of humanity at large. It enables us to get a view into the hidden depths of the human spirit, and displays to us the remarkable phenomenon of the association of primeval animal instincts with the highest spirituality. It at the same time debases love, and renders it more profound, and it touches the most secret aspects of our nature.

sings Joseph Lauff in his “Geisslerin” (Cologne, 1901). Is there any pleasure without pain? is there any love without sorrow? He who is familiar with the history of civilization will answer these questions in the negative. Pain is a civilizing factor of the first rank; it is the necessary pre-condition and the inevitable accompaniment of pleasure and the affirmation of life. This is the central idea of the philosophy of Nietzsche. The pain of love is only a special case of the great immeasurable Weltschmerz and Weltlust (world-pain and world-joy), which move us so deeply in the powerful descriptions of Schopenhauer, and have always been the most lofty objects of contemplation to philosophers and to students of civilization.[589]

That love-pleasure and love-pain, the forces of creation and destruction—yes, indeed, that love and death (which Leopardi in a wonderful poem celebrated as twin brothers)—are separated only by a “thin veil” (Havelock Ellis), was an idea first expressed in the celebrated work of the formidable Marquis de Sade,[590] whose books, taken as a whole, are merely a paraphrase of the idea of the connexion between pain and voluptuousness; and, moreover, de Sade does not recognize this connexion only in active algolagnia—that is, in the infliction of pain, the voluptuousness of cruelty, the so-called “sadism”—but he recognizes it equally in passive algolagnia, in the suffering of pain, the voluptuousness of being tortured, in the state named after the author Sacher-Masoch, “masochism.” De Sade, who was the first consistent advocate of the anthropologico-ethnological theory of psychopathia sexualis, himself collected almost all the facts regarding the biological roots of painful lasciviousness, and regarding algolagnistic phenomena in ethnology and in the history of civilization.

The foundation for the understanding of active and passive algolagnia is constituted by the fact that we have here, in the first place, to do with a purely biological phenomenon, which makes its appearance in every normal love. The sexual act exhibits to us pain and pleasure in an indissoluble association. Love’s embrace is a “sweet pain,” a painful pleasure.[591]

The nature of the sense of voluptuousness is still rather obscure, but it is certain that painful sensations make their appearance as its accompaniment, probably indeed as an actual part of voluptuousness. I may remind the reader of the interesting remarks of Edmund Forster, mentioned on p. 44, regarding the conception of sexual tension as a stimulation of the pain-perceiving nerves of the genital organs. Still more clearly is pain reflected (pain both active and passive) in the love-embrace itself, in the phenomena[592] which we previously (pp. 50-51) described, such as fierce embraces, convulsive seizures, grinding of the teeth, screaming and biting, both on the part of the man and on the part of the woman. Lucretius (“De Rerum Natura,” iv., verses 1054-1061) gave a vivid description of the normal sadistic and masochistic accompaniments of coitus. In this association sadism certainly predominates on the part of the man, though not exclusively; and, contrariwise, masochism predominates, though not exclusively, on the part of the woman. The sadistic “love-bites,” for example, are more frequently given by the woman, especially among savage races,[593] but among the Slavonic peoples it is the man rather who practises the “biting-kiss” during the sexual act.[594]

writes Karl Beck in his “Stille Lieder.”

How closely these phenomena are connected with the ideas of blood and cruelty, and how this connexion is favoured by the redness and the flow of blood during sexual excitement, are matters previously discussed (p. 51); and in my “Contributions to the Etiology of Psychopathia Sexualis” (vol. ii., pp. 39-41) I have considered the question at greater length. In the same category must also be placed the sexually stimulating influence of red colours.

In association with these algolagnistic manifestations, so long as they remain within physiological bounds, we do not so much see actual physical pain, the actual infliction of suffering or cruelty, as the idea thereof, as mental pain; indeed, actual pain is often not lustful, as such, but only in idea. Eulenburg,[595] especially, has rightly drawn attention to this mental intensification of algolagnia. Mental pain and tears give a wonderful depth to love, increase passion, as Goethe describes in his “Stella.” Love needs pain, in order to be perceived as love. Why? Because pain is something new, a contrast to pleasure, whose eternity would be unbearable. This is described very clearly in the “Letters of Ninon de L’Enclos,” which, though apocryphal, are not less psychologically interesting (German edition, pp. 220, 221; Berlin, 1906).

“Change in the spiritual state is important to the happiness of both the lovers. And what could better provide this advantage than a separation? Have you never experienced the sweetness of a tender separation? The disquiet, the commiseration, the tears which accompany the departing lover, are they not something most valuable to a delicate, sensitive soul? Commonly, lovers regard separation for a few days as an evil. But if they examined the nature of their reputed pain a little more closely, they would soon perceive that this pain does not make a purely disagreeable impression on the soul; on the contrary, an entrancing joy lies hidden therein. The pain enfolds a delightful charm; and we learn that the heart, however much it may be moved with sympathy, always finds itself in an agreeable mood as soon as it is able to exercise its sensibility.”

Similarly, G. H. Schneider remarks (op. cit., pp. 126, 127), that in all love relationships there arises a need for becoming aware of

“the contrast between the pain and the ecstasy of love, by misunderstandings, by transient mental torment, by momentary jealousy on the part of the woman, or by sportive or earnest threats; and this need is gratified instinctively by man, because he feels instinctively that love without it disappears or will disappear.”

He explains this necessity for pain and sorrow in love as dependent upon a degree of exhaustion, a fatigue of the nerve-centres concerned, which demand a period of repose. In the ancestors of the human race, and in the lower animals, this repose was obtained by the alternation of quite opposite feelings, such as love and hate; thus the occasional stimulation of those centres also by which pain is perceived is a physiological necessity for the nervous system.

Nothing, in fact, is harder to bear than a succession of beautiful days; this is true even of love. Why is it that the very best, unalterably tender wives or husbands are so frequently deceived? Certainly it is because they often forget that with the sweetness of love it is necessary to intermingle a little bitterness, and so to allow their partner now and again to experience the “joy of grief.”

Mental pain as a general sociological, literary, and philosophical phenomenon, manifests itself as Weltschmerz and pessimism. Both modes of perception conceal intense feelings of pleasure. Schopenhauer, who was well aware of this fact, remarks (“Works,” ed. Grisebach, i., 508) that the recognition of the sorrows of existence, of the misery which extends itself over the whole of life, is accompanied by a secret joy, which by the “most melancholy” of all nations was termed the “joy of grief.” Admirably also has Kuno Fischer, in his account of Schopenhauer’s philosophy, described the pleasure to be found in the pessimistic mode of perception; and O. Zimmermann has written an interesting psychological work upon the “Joy of Grief” (second edition; Leipzig, 1885).

The pleasure anyone experiences in his own pain, or in that of another, constitutes the nucleus of all algolagnistic phenomena, and to cruelty as an intermediator in this painful lasciviousness there belongs only a secondary rôle. The deeply-rooted instinct of cruelty, which first manifests itself in early childhood, is biologically associated with the perception of pain. Various theories of cruelty have been propounded. Thus, according to Schopenhauer, cruelty gives rise to pain in another, in order to diminish its own pain; and, according to this view, it is only a means of treatment for the relief of one’s own pain. More illuminating is the explanation of the English psychologist Bain, who derives cruelty from the consciousness of power and the enjoyment of power, from the delight felt in dominating the tortured individual. Nietzsche is the most celebrated apostle of this diffusion of power, this enjoyment of power in the “superman,” and by means of the “masterful morality.” He formally does homage to cruelty as a means of advancing towards higher civilization.

“Almost everything,” he says, “which we call higher civilization depends upon the spiritualization and deepening of cruelty.... That which constitutes the painful pleasure of comedy is cruelty; that which is agreeable to our senses in the so-called tragic sympathy—fundamentally, indeed, whatever is pleasurable to us up to the most intense and delicate metaphysical horror—obtains its sweetness only from the intermingled ingredient of cruelty. That which the Romans enjoyed in the arena, that which Christ enjoyed in the Passion of the Cross, the Spaniards regarding an auto-da-fe or a bull-fight, the Japanese of to-day, with his love for the tragic, the Parisian workman who has a passion for sanguinary revolutions, the Wagnerian rejoicing in the spectacle of Tristan and Isolde—all alike enjoy, all alike are suffused with secret ardour as they drain the Circe’s cup of ‘cruelty.’

“We must therefore,” he continues with justice, “for ever deny the absurd psychology which attempted to teach regarding cruelty that it arose only from the view of another’s pain! There exists an abundant—over-abundant—joy also in one’s own pain, in making one’s own self suffer; and whenever man persuades himself—it may be only to self-denial in the religious sense, or to self-mutilation like the Phœnicians and the ascetics, to self-torment in religion, to the puritanic convulsive penitence, to the vivisection of conscience, and to Pascal’s sacrifice of the intellect—in all these alike he is lured onwards and impelled forwards by his cruelty alone, by that dangerous emotion of cruelty directed against himself.”

With a few brilliant words Nietzsche thus describes the principal phenomena of algolagnia. Ethnology and the history of the world offer us in equal measure numerous interesting proofs of the primitive tendency of human nature to sadistic and masochistic manifestations. We must learn to recognize the diffusion throughout the entire world of active and passive algolagnia, making its appearance in the most diverse forms, in order to understand many occurrences of the present day. In my “Contributions to the Etiology of Psychopathia Sexualis” (vol. ii., pp. 43-75, 95, 96, 109-113, 120-157, 228-240) I have collected these anthropological and ethnological data, regarding the universal diffusion of algolagnia in all epochs and in all countries; and I have referred to the occurrence of sadism and masochism as affecting mankind in the mass, a fact of particular importance in this connexion. To give some examples: Campaigns, gladiatorial combats, man-hunts, beast-baiting, bull-fights,[596] sensational dramas, public executions, inquisition and witch trials, lynch-law as practised to-day in North America,[597] in the behaviour of the crowd of onlookers at the former punishment of the pillory, especially also in revolutions, of which to-day once more we have the most horrible examples in Russia (cf. also the appendix to this chapter), in the primeval custom of marriage by capture, in cannibalism, the belief in witches and werwolves, in slavery, flagellantism, and the scourgers of the middle ages, the horrible “satanism” of the same period, gynecocracy or the dominion of woman, the service of women of the Minne epoch, the Italian cicisbeato, and the Slavonic sexual slavery of men, asceticism and martyrdom, the ethnological diffusion of skatological, koprological, and urolagnistic practices, etc. These facts suffice to prove that in all times, and among all nations, sadism and masochism, in all the forms we still observe to-day, were most widely diffused; and to show that they arise from certain instincts deeply rooted in the soul of the people, whose existence even to-day manifests itself everywhere. Take, for example, the following extract from the Vossische Zeitung, No. 475, October 10, 1906:

“A great automobile race which took place in Long Island at the beginning of the month presented certain features reminding us of the old gladiatorial games. Three men were killed during the race, a woman and a boy were so seriously injured that at the time of writing they are at the point of death, and from twenty to thirty persons suffered fractures and other grave injuries. From all parts of the United States as many as half a million persons had assembled to see the races. At the very outset the huge crowd was in a state of hysterical excitement. The Automobile Club had taken the utmost care in its preparations for the safety of the course, and had shut it off on both sides by a net 8 feet in height. This protecting wall was, however, torn down by the crowd, which pressed in everywhere, especially at those places which the cars were to pass at their highest speed. Notwithstanding all the warnings of the police, those in search of sensation only tried to get out of the way when the cars were close upon them. At a turning in the course there were assembled 1,000 persons belonging to the best circles of New York society. Every time when, at this dangerous point, one of the cars had an accident, these people rushed forwards, in order to see as closely as possible what was going on; the women screamed and fainted from excitement, while the police bludgeoned the people blindly, in order to make room for the following cars, and in order to prevent worse evils. The spectators were as if mad with the desire to see blood. A lady who was pressing forward with the crowd, when one of the cars had upset, expressed her disappointment plainly, ‘Oh dear, there is no one killed!’”

In an essay entitled “Russia as It Now Is,” regarding the Russian punitive expeditions against the revolutionaries, the St. Petersburg correspondent of a German paper reports:

“These expeditions have long forgotten the political purpose of their ‘mission’; they murder simply out of congenital lust to murder, from racial love of blood, from plainly perceptible morbid perversity. The shooting of boys, the flogging of women, without mentioning the still worse ‘punishments’ which we cannot even venture to describe, which take place in the presence of, or with the actual assistance of, the greater and lesser provincial satraps, and regarding which I have collected extensive material—all produced in me, who have been a student of criminal psychology, very remarkable reflections.”

In these cases, no doubt, the principal cause of the actions in which cruelty becomes pleasurable is the powerful emotional disturbance, the violent excitement, which, again, increases sexual desire. De Sade himself was familiar with the fact that excitement produced by strong emotions had a powerful influence upon sexual processes; that it increased them, changed them, and led to abnormal manifestations. “All sensations increase one another mutually.” Anger, fear, rage, hatred, cruelty, increase sexual tension, and therewith also increase the pleasure of the discharge of that tension. Bouillier[598] drew attention to the fact that frequently in men, who otherwise have exhibited in their life very genial and sympathetic natures, it is not the desire of blood and suffering in itself which evokes sexual cruelty, but it is the desire for this associated increase in emotions. Similarly, Horwicz[599] explains the joy of martyrdom also as dependent upon the powerful sexual stimulation which it produces.

A peculiar form of sexual excitement associated with emotional disturbance has been described by Charles Féré, under the name of ergophilia (“Note sur une Anomalie de l’Instinct Sexuel: Ergophilie,” published in Belgique Médicale, 1905). The case was that of a woman, twenty-six years of age, who when a child of four had first experienced sexual excitement at a fair while watching a little girl juggler of her own age playing with three balls. Subsequently every time when this scene occurred to her memory she had a sexual orgasm; also when once at a circus she was watching some gymnasts whose performance was characterized by elegance and ease, she had the same experience. The same also occurred when she saw a man use a scythe. In a frigid marriage she always returned to these imaginations, as the only means of obtaining sexual gratification. Féré is right in distinguishing from sadism this form of sexual excitement induced by the view of elegant bodily exercises. The generally exciting view of movement had in this case a special exciting influence upon the genital organs of an obviously hysterical person. Perhaps also the case reported by Amrain (Anthropophyteia, vol. iv., p. 242) is similar to this—a case in which a man fifty-three years of age was sexually excited by the spinning round of prostitutes on rapidly rotating stools.

Helvetius, Bain, Lully, James, Herbert Spencer, Steinmetz, and many other psychologists and anthropologists, have endeavoured to explain on evolutionary grounds this intimate association between the emotions, and to establish an association between cruelty and sexuality. They suggest that the gratification of sexual needs is for the individual a love-battle, involving the sacrifice of numerous opponents in order to gain the favour of the beloved being. In this way there arose an association between the shedding of blood and sexual enjoyment; and the rage of battle, as Marro very rightly insists, may sometimes be suddenly transferred from the rival to the female herself, and thus assume a sadistic character. Definite traces of this connexion may still be observed among the popular customs of many nations, as, for example, in New Caledonia, where the girls are pursued by their lovers into the bush, and, after they have been overpowered, and after sexual intercourse has taken place, “they are brought back, bitten, bruised, scratched, covered with bites on the shoulders and the back of the neck.”

I regard the emotional theory of cruelty as the best, because it provides the easiest explanation of all the facts; and above all, because it also explains the frequently observed cruelty of woman, who, as the more easily excited creature, displays a higher, more artificial kind of cruelty than man, whose balance is not so easily disturbed by his emotions. Montaigne[600] makes the acute observation that cruelty is usually accompanied by a feminine softness. Havelock Ellis[601] also remarks that the most extreme, most elaborate degree of sadism is commonly associated with a somewhat feminine organization.

We might explain the cruelty of women, and that of enervated, effeminate voluptuaries from fear and cowardice, from the debasing consciousness of the weakness of their own personality, which by means of cruelty takes revenge on the strength of another, and transiently luxuriates in the associated intoxication of power, in the mere idea of superiority. It is certainly in this way that we must explain the horrible cruelty of worn-out debauchees, such as is described by de Sade in his romances. Such types also were Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, Domitian, Heliogabalus, and Cæsar Borgia; among women, Catherine de Medici and those “delicate Creole women who, after enjoying voluptuous pleasure in intercourse with a negro slave, proceed to enjoy the further pleasure of seeing the man unmercifully flogged.”[602]

In addition, the blunting of the senses which results from long-continued sexual excesses demands the stronger stimulus of cruelty. Just as in the debauchee, so also in the prostitute, this blunting of the senses induces a predisposition to sadism. Many prostitutes and masseuses become sadists quite as much from inclination as from custom (the latter from intercourse with masochistic clients); and they find sexual pleasure in tormenting men, regarding themselves as incorporate ideals of “mistresses.”

Among Europeans, residence in hot climates gives rise to a peculiar form of tropical cruelty, the so-called “tropical frenzy.” The psychology of this condition is complex. Various predisposing causes must concur in order to produce tropical frenzy. In the first place, it occurs almost exclusively in Europeans who fill official positions giving them very extensive powers, such as they did not enjoy before leaving home. Those who become affected live usually in regions in which all the limitations of conventional morality and of social relationships with their fellow-countrymen are laid aside, so that the civilized man is in a position which enables him to follow without restraint his own inward impulses; also he finds himself in contact with an “inferior” race, which he regards and treats as half or completely animal.[603] The influence of climate is also of great importance, as Hans von Becker assumes. Owing, it may be, to the intense heat, disturbances of metabolism ensue, and by the formation of toxins, the central nervous system and the psyche are injured, and thus there is induced a “tropical moral insanity,” a morbid impulsiveness, associated with complete loss of understanding of ordinary ethical and moral principles. Or, again, it is possible that, as Plehn believes, the abnormally high temperature gives rise to acute outbreaks only in chronic alcoholists, taking the form of tropical frenzy. In any case, this disorder is with especial frequency characterized by marked sadistic practices, as is proved by the colonial scandals of every country. In connexion with this, we do not need any further demonstration of the manner in which the institutions of slavery and serfdom have always induced and furthered sadistic instincts, and, speaking generally, the same is true of all relationships by which isolated individuals are given uncontrolled powers over the bodies and lives of their fellow-men.

A chief cause of algolagnia, of active algolagnia, but more especially of the passive form, is to be found in the diverse sexual demeanour of man and woman respectively, and this, again, depends upon the difference between the masculine and feminine natures. Opposed to the stormy, eager activity of the man, we have the quiet passivity of the woman. The latter has aptly been compared to a magnet which, notwithstanding its own apparent immobility, still irresistibly attracts and holds fast the iron (the man), making the latter in a sense her slave; upon this passivity depends the unmistakable superiority of woman in purely sensual love. Physical nature alone gives her an advantage over man, just precisely in the point to which she outwardly appears subordinated to him. Thus, among the Indians of Central Brazil man is officially lord and master of woman—and does what she wills.[604] Thus it has always been in the highest grades of civilization also, wherever sensual relationships have been solely effective in determining the relative positions of men and women. The true “henpecked husband” (I say “true,” because there also exist such in appearance only) of our European civilization is the man who, from the beginning, has been subjected to the domination of his wife in consequence of his own immoderate sexual needs; by these needs he has been permanently placed under her control, and this control has secondarily been extended to other relationships. This is the psychological secret of the henpecked state, just as it is also of the “mistress rule,” which, beginning as a purely sexual relationship between king or prince on the one hand and his mistress on the other, later extends also to the domain of political activity. The greater the sexual passivity and coldness of the woman, the more readily does she gain dominion over the man. A favourite means for this purpose is the practice of “coquetry” (a matter previously discussed), which can also be defined as the activity of women in fettering men to themselves and in bringing them under feminine dominion. The Anglo-Saxon “flirt” is only a lighter shade of “coquette,” representing rather spiritual-æsthetic coquetry, whilst the true coquette makes use of purely sensual means, and speculates upon sex only, without reference to the intellectual qualities. “A truly coquettish woman listens with pleasure to the rankest flattery of the most insignificant individual; she takes the trouble to stimulate the desires of the most contemptible being, although she is daily surrounded by longing admirers.”[605] Joseph Peladan relates in one of his romances how a distinguished lady, while getting into her carriage, intentionally displayed her leg to a poor man standing by, although at the very same moment she was coquetting audaciously with a gentleman of her own rank. Woman instinctively aims at the subjection of man, and voluptuous stimulation serves her as the best-tried means of doing this. In so far as man becomes the “slave” and victim of his sensuality, does he exhibit a masochistic disposition; but, in so far as by his force and his intelligence he overcomes this sexual dependency, and by means of his natural activity and energy displayed also in sexual relationships, behaves heedlessly and brutally to the woman, who has now become completely passive, does the sadistic element preponderate in him. From this we are able to understand how it is that sadism and masochism may often appear in the same person; they are only the active and the passive form respectively of the algolagnia which lies at the basis of both of them, and in which the true essence of both these phenomena subsists.

When in the following paragraphs we briefly describe the individual phenomena and types of sadism and masochism, we do this always with the tacit implication that the majority of types are not pure forms either of sadism or masochism, but represent a mixture of both. This is especially true of the most widely diffused of all algolagnistic perversions, the so-called flagellomania (sexual desire for flagellation or flagellantism)—that is to say, flogging and whipping, or being flogged and whipped in order to induce sexual excitement. An elaborately critical account of sexual flagellantism in its physiological, psychological, literary, and historical relationships is to be found in the second volume of my work on “The Sexual Life in England,” pp. 336-481 (Berlin, 1903). In this passage there is a fairly complete collection, alike of the older and of the newer literary material devoted to this topic.[606]

Flagellation is, therefore, the principal means by which sadistic tendencies become active, because in this manner all the physiological sadistic accompaniments of sexual intercourse unite, and make their appearance with a stronger potentiality. It is an imitation and a conscious synthesis of these sadistic accompaniments, which in their most primitive form are to be seen in the lower animals. Especially in the case of tritons and salamanders we can observe a typical flagellation, effected by means of the tail, prior to coitus. The voluptuous gratification during flagellation varies in character according as the flagellation is active or passive. The nature of the latter is as follows: by vigorous friction and blows, especially in the region of the genital organs, and more particularly on the buttocks, a peculiarly increased voluptuous stimulus is induced by the painful sensations. Simple massage and friction of the skin suffices to produce such an effect, especially after warm baths, as has long been known in the East, and is employed in the so-called “Turkish baths.” More especially, the rubbing of the buttocks evokes a purely physical reflex stimulation of the spinal and sympathetic ejaculatory centre; still more rapidly is this produced by flogging and whipping of these parts (the so-called “lower discipline”). The painful sensations are said ultimately to undergo complete transformation into voluptuous sensations; unquestionably the imagination must here render much assistance, and the masochistic element is especially marked in those who undergo passive flagellation. The increased flow of blood to the genital organs, to which the flagellation necessarily gives rise, must also obviously play a part in evoking and strengthening the voluptuous sensation. Simultaneously also this congestion gives rise to erection of the penis; hence the very ancient employment of flagellation to relieve impotence, alluded to by Petronius in a celebrated passage of his “Satyricon.”

In the case of active flagellation, the voluptuous stimulation is mainly of a sadistic nature; the view of the parts quivering under the lash, becoming red or even bleeding, the cries of the person who is being whipped, the erotic influence of the kallipygian charms, here play the principal rôle.

The inclination to flagellation, both passive and active, is generally aroused by some chance occurrence, such as looking at a flogging, when the spectator finds himself to be in a state of sexual excitement and recognizes its cause—as, for example, in consequence of the official and ritual practice of flogging in schools, prisons,[607] barracks, monasteries, etc., also by whipping and giving blows in social games. Especially dangerous is the whipping of children, whose sexual impulse is only too often aroused by blows upon the buttocks, and then, unconsciously, this excitement is in their minds permanently endowed with a causal connexion with whipping, from which ultimately a perversion (flagellomania) is induced. Well known is Rousseau’s description of this connexion in his “Confessions.” I append the following description by a patient of this tendency to flagellation:

“In a similar way to that which you describe, flagellantism was unfortunately awakened in me in early youth. This was first developed in me by the fact that my parents allowed the maidservants to exercise a far-reaching right of chastisement. When I was fourteen years old, I still received whippings from the servants, with my father’s knowledge and consent; and these whippings, since my father had forbidden any other kind of chastisement as harmful to health, took place on the buttocks, and were always effected after this region of the body had been bared. I still remember most vividly that when I was at the age mentioned a maidservant who was hardly two years older than myself switched me in this region with especial zeal. I remember also that when I was in my ninth year, owing to the free use which the maidservants commonly made of their privilege, I had entirely ceased to dread this chastisement; indeed from that time I often intentionally incurred a whipping by the maids, which was not difficult; and from the age of fourteen years I personally gave the maidservants my permission to chastise me in the above manner without the knowledge of my parents, and was always thrown by it into a state of sexual excitement. Such excitement was also produced in me by merely witnessing the chastisement of my two sisters, who were somewhat younger than myself, both of whom were still beaten with a switch when they were fifteen years of age. As regards my two sisters, this did not lead to desire on their part that this procedure, which was always disagreeable to them, should be frequently repeated, but they were always glad to see me whipped; and, as a matter of fact, my own sensation of pleasure was greatly increased by their being present, and moreover, especially in later years, I always enjoyed it more if the maidservant whipped me in the presence of her friends or if one of them let me hold her hand during the process. I especially preferred being struck with the bare hands, although occasionally I endured severe whippings with the stick or with the dog-whip at my own special request.”

In a second case which came under my own observation, the person affected being a lawyer, then twenty-eight years of age, the cause of the development of his flagellomania was different and more indirect.

At the age of eleven or twelve years he was lying on the top of a dog-kennel and masturbating, and he had tied his feet to the top of the kennel, lest, when in a state of sexual excitement, he might fall off. Since then he had always felt an impulse to have himself tied, which he sought to satisfy in boyish games (robbers, police, etc.); this always induced in him agreeable sexual feelings, which were further increased by onanistic friction. At the age of fifteen there became associated with this desire to be tied a further need to be whipped while he was tied up. This patient has a disinclination to normal coitus and to the female genital organs, but he desires to receive flagellation only from women. Two successive attempts at normal sexual intercourse were unsuccessful. The patient induced in a maidservant the inclination to passive and active flagellation, and this woman, although she resisted at first, was subsequently, six months later, a passionate flagellant. In other respects the patient is thoroughly healthy, and has been through his one-year term of military service in the cavalry.

With regard to the origin of “schoolmaster’s sadism,” which is, unfortunately, very widely diffused, the well-known case of the schoolmaster Dippold recently gave a horrible example.[608]

The teacher or schoolmaster may, at the commencement of his activity, be entirely free from any flagellantic tendency. This tendency makes its appearance in the course of the customary exercise of his duties of physical chastisement. This gradually induces in him a sense of sexual pleasure. As long as these chastisements are kept within normal bounds, and only occasionally undertaken, we have to do merely with a tendency, with an aberration of sexual gratification, such as occurs in numerous healthy individuals, even when they are not teachers or schoolmasters, persons who seek and find an opportunity for the exercise of these tendencies in the brothel or with “masseuses.” When, however, a systematic flagellomania develops, and the person affected no longer merely chastises, but maltreats and tortures, and does this habitually and with bestial cruelty, as in Dippold’s case, we certainly have always to do with sadism developed in the soil of a morbid predisposition. The following cases appear to be of this nature:

1. A case which reminds us of that of Dippold recently appeared before the Second Criminal Chamber in Hamburg. The accused was a man belonging to the cultured classes, who had had a University education, had become a reserve officer, and had filled many other positions, finally that of the editor of a journal published by an advertising firm. The accused lived in Berlin in the years 1900 to 1903. There he formed an intimacy with a woman, whom he induced to entrust him with her son, for the continuance of his education. Going himself to live in Hamburg in July, 1903, the boy was sent to him in that town in January, 1904, and was placed in a boarding school. “In order not to be disturbed in his teaching,” the man also rented a room in the neighbourhood of the school. When engaging this room he asked the landlady if there were curtains to cover the windows. On the first day on which she visited the room the landlady noticed that the accused flogged the boy, and as she did not wish to allow this in her dwelling, she reported the matter to the police. After some time the woman learned by questioning the boy certain remarkable facts, especially with regard to the “educational methods” which the accused had carried out in Berlin, and in her report to the police she added certain details, which led to the arrest of the accused. The accused admitted that he had caned the boy severely, and he declared that he had done this only for educational reasons, as the boy was of a bad character. In this respect the statement of the accused was confuted by the evidence of the boy’s teacher in Berlin, that of his teacher in Hamburg, and that of the inmates of the pension in which he lived; all of these gave him a very good character. With respect to the mode of chastisement, the details of which were heard in camera, the court held that there was no doubt that the accused had chastised the boy, not for educational reasons, but on account of perverse tendencies of his own, and condemned him to imprisonment for one year and loss of civil rights for two years. It is a noteworthy fact that the accused, during the latter part of this period of association with the boy, had lived in a happy marriage with a young woman.

2. A disciple of Dippold. The following remarkable case was published in the Berliner Tageblatt, No. 629, December 11, 1903: A furniture-polisher of this town accosted boys whom he met in the street, gave them some trifling commission, and so arranged matters with them that they must ultimately return to him at his room. Here he gave himself out to be a detective officer, showed the boy a token which he pretended was his official commission, and then gave the boy a severe lecture. “He regretted,” he said in conclusion, that, owing to the misconduct of the lad, it would be necessary to fine his parents, unless the offences were condoned by the immediate chastisement of the boy. The “detective” easily persuaded his victims that it would be better to accept the immediate flogging. After he had stretched his victim across his knees and beaten him with a stick, he looked to see that the blows had not made too obvious marks, and sent the lad away with a further brief admonition. In most instances the boys who had been whipped concealed what had happened from their parents; but still the matter came to light, and this new Dippold is to be tried for causing grievous bodily harm, and for the false pretence that he occupied an official position. The accused is a young man, twenty-five years of age, and, with his small and slender figure and with a blonde moustache, he makes rather the impression of a young man of eighteen.

Very frequently the tendency to flagellation is at first artificially evoked in brothels. Hogarth, in his “A Harlot’s Progress,” has rightly depicted the switch as a necessary requisite of the interior of a brothel, and this simple instrument of flagellation is rarely absent from a prostitute’s dwelling. It appears to be England alone, the classical country of flagellomania, in which actual “flagellation brothels” have existed.[609] A historical example is that of the celebrated establishment of Theresa Berkley, the inventor of an especial apparatus for the whipping of men, the so-called “Berkley-Horse.” It appears that in England the female sex has a taste for active and passive flagellation; and we find that a German author[610] attributes to woman a greater inclination towards flagellomania than that exhibited by man. This tendency is encouraged by certain male flagellants, who obtain sexual gratification by the flagellation of women. Guénolé (op. cit., pp. 151, 152) reports the existence of secret places in Paris where young women and girls combine to form a kind of “school,” in which male sadists carry out “instruction” with the switch!

In connexion with flagellation we must consider the peculiar tendency to the fettering of the individual to be flogged, who desires to be rendered defenceless. For this purpose various apparatus exist of the same kind as the “fettering-chair” invented in the eighteenth century by the Duke of Fronsac.[611] Of the same nature also is the impulse to wear very tight shoes and gloves and very small corsets, the so-called “corset discipline,” in which the person affected, who may be of either sex, is laced up very tightly in a very small corset. This is met with chiefly in England, especially in association with sexual flagellation.

In comparatively rare cases flagellomania is a morbid condition by which responsibility is entirely abrogated; but from the medico-legal point of view responsibility is impaired or suspended in the majority of cases of well-marked sadism, which we have now to describe. To this category belong:

1. Sadistic Bodily Injuries and “Lust-Murder.”—The main types of this category are the “girl-stabbers” and the “lust-murderers,” who simply for the purpose of producing sexual excitement, or when already under the influence of such excitement, inflict on women more or less severe injuries with a knife or other murderous instrument. The actual intention to kill is present only in very rare cases. The lust-murder is, as a rule, only a murder as a sequel of a sexual act committed by force, the murder being done from fear of discovery, etc.; thus the murder has not in these cases anything directly to do with the sexual act. In other cases we have what appears to be a lust-murder in which death has resulted, contrary to the wish of the offender, from a sadistic bodily injury. Killing from a purely sexual motive is a very rare occurrence, of which, however, some very widely known cases are on record—like those of Andreas Bickel, Menesclou, Alton, Gruyo, Verzeni,[612] and “Jack the Ripper,” the Whitechapel murderer. [Regarding the Whitechapel murders, see E. C. Spitza, “The Whitechapel Murders: their Medico-Legal and Historical Aspects,” published in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases, December, 1888. Great attention and alarm was aroused in Paris in the years 1818-1819 by a girl-stabber (piqueur). In numerous caricatures, popular songs, and vaudevilles these assaults were “celebrated,” of which a very rare pamphlet, “La Piqure à la Mode” (Paris, 1819), gives evidence. Cf. J. Grand-Carteret in “Les Images Galantes” (1907, No. 7). Much alarm was caused in July, 1902, by the crimes of a new “Jack the Ripper” in New York, and by the horrible child-murders committed in Berlin by an obviously insane sadist, not yet arrested. In a single day he ripped up the abdomens of several small children with a pair of scissors.] Many “murder epidemics” (manie homicide), such as the murders recently committed in Sweden by Nordlund, who, though indubitably insane, was executed for them, are certainly connected with sexuality. The two following cases from German experience relate to typical “girl-stabbers”:

Ludwigshafen am Rhein, March 26, 1901.—After the manner of the Whitechapel murderer, an unknown criminal had for several weeks made the parts of the town lying in the direction of the suburb of Mundenheim unsafe. Not less than eleven girls were seriously injured after nightfall by stabs in the abdomen. To-night the police succeeded in arresting the criminal, who is a drover, Wilhelm Damian by name, twenty-eight years of age. Five years ago he was suspected of having committed a lust-murder on a servant-girl; he was arrested at this time, but was discharged owing to the lack of sufficient proof. Now the suspicion is aroused that Damian is responsible also for the lust-murder committed two years ago near Mundenheim on a little girl seven years of age, because the circumstances of that case suggested that the murderer was a butcher by occupation, and this applies to Damian.

Kiel, November 29, 1901.—It is not yet possible to arrest the stabber who, during the last week, has been active in the poorest quarter of the town. At first he limited himself to the northern districts, and there wounded only women and girls; but in the last day or two he appeared, not only in the central parts of the town, but also in the southern quarter, where, the day before yesterday, in the evening, he wounded a girl by two stabs, one in the neck and one in the hip. Since then a man has been stabbed, apparently by this same evil-doer, but was not seriously hurt. This happened in one of the busiest streets of the town, so that the escape of the criminal is very remarkable.

Other peculiar sadistic injuries sometimes occur. Thus, in the year 1902 a printer, twenty-two years of age, was condemned by the criminal court of Breslau, because in thirteen cases he had thrown oil of vitriol at young ladies! Here also we have probably to do with a sadistic tendency. In the end of October, 1906, in Berlin, a case came under notice in which a young girl took another girl to the dentist (!) and (after previous anæsthetization) had two teeth drawn unnecessarily; but whether this case was or was not of a sadistic nature remains undetermined. But we certainly have to do with sadism in those cases in which men or women inflict slight injuries on their love-partner for the purpose of sucking blood, which gives them sexual gratification (sexual vampirism). Many murders by poison (women murderers commonly prefer the use of poison to that of any other instrument) also arise from sadistic tendencies. At any rate, the majority of professional female prisoners, such as Jegado, Brinvilliers, Ursinus, Gottfried (the celebrated poisoner of Bremen), and others, were unquestionably women given to sexual excesses or sexually very excitable, so that here voluptuousness and the lust for murder appear to have an intimate causal connexion.

The following remarkable case of sadistic deprivation of freedom is reported by Kiernan (“A Remarkable Case of Fetishism,” published in The Alienist and Neurologist, 1906, p. 462):

“Two citizens of good position, of Wladikaukas, in Russia, had repeatedly carried off girls of good family, and had treated them in an extraordinary way. On account of senile dementia they were acquitted of criminality, and were sent to an asylum. The last victim was a young heiress, who was kept prisoner by them for an entire year. Two masked elderly men fell upon her by night, gagged her, put a bandage over her eyes, and drove away with her in a carriage. When the bandage was taken off, she was in a well-furnished drawing-room. The two old men, without saying a word, gave her a scanty dress of feathers, and shut her up in a great gilded cage, which stood in the drawing-room. One of them—she never saw the other again—came in silence to visit her every morning, looked at her through the bars of the cage, often threw her lumps of sugar, and every morning brought her a can of hot water, which he emptied into a vessel inside the cage, saying, ‘Take a bath, little bird.’ These were the only words which she heard. After a year had passed, the man let her out of the cage, put a bandage over her eyes, and drove her in a carriage to a place near her house. No similar case is known to me in medical literature. Everything was conducted Platonically; there was no coitus, no exhibitionism or masturbation, either before or after looking at this peculiar bird. Certainly there must have been some kind of abortive sexual gratification, of a sadistic character, and with the limitation that only young girls of good family, dressed as birds and kept in a cage, could excite libido. But why must they have the appearance of a bird? Possibly in the subconsciousness the idea of the bird as a lascivious animal played a certain part. But why did one only come and see the ‘bird’ every day? That they must be young girls is natural in the case of old men: extremes meet; but that they must be of good family suggests a sadistic element, and still more is this suggested by the imprisonment.”

2. Offences against Property committed from Sadistic Motives.—To this class belong all sadistic injuries not of the person, but of property. For example, pouring vitriol over the clothing, of which the following case (Vossische Zeitung, No. 574, December 7, 1905) is an example:

At the present time an unknown man is making the south-eastern districts of Berlin unsafe by the use of oil of vitriol. This dangerous criminal pours the liquid upon women’s clothing, selecting by preference light-coloured fabrics. Yesterday evening he almost completely ruined the new light-coloured dress of a young lady who was passing along the Hermannstrasse. The offender, who apparently derives pleasure from injuring women’s clothing, is of middle height, about twenty-five years of age, has fair hair, and wears a fashionable overcoat.

To the same category belongs arson from sexual motives, which was formerly[613] attributed to a “passion for fire” (pyromania); but when sexual motives play a part, it is unquestionably of a purely sadistic nature.[614]

Of the same character is sexual kleptomania—theft from sexual motives. Lichtenberg was familiar with this, for he says “the sexual impulse very frequently leads to thefts,” and he alludes to the proposal which has been made in England to castrate thieves.[615]

The organic causation of the kleptomania so often seen at the present day in large shops is very frequently of a sexual nature, dependent upon puberty, the climacteric, menstrual anomalies, etc. Cases of this character have been reported by Worbe, Gönner, Schmidtlein, Unzer, Häussler, Lombroso, and Ferrero. The suspicion of sexual sadistic grounds for kleptomania may always be justifiably entertained when rich ladies repeatedly steal articles of small value of which they have no need.

A typical case of sexual kleptomania is reported by H. Zingerle (“Contributions to the Psychological Genesis of Sexual Perversities,” published in the Annual for Psychiatry and Neurology, 1900):

A woman, twenty-one years of age, who from childhood had been psychopathic, had from her school-days onwards had a definite desire to appropriate certain objects, especially such as were made of brown leather (brown shoes), umbrellas, money. Only the act of stealing gave her any gratification, not the keeping of the stolen objects, which she usually destroyed or gave away. During the act of theft she had a well-developed sense of voluptuousness, accompanied by a discharge of secretion from the genital organs. She performed these thefts as the result of an irresistible impulse, and after them she felt remorse. She preferred large objects such as were difficult to hide, and it was precisely when there were great hindrances to be overcome and dangers to be run, and when in the pursuit of her aim she was subjected to emotional disturbances, that the accompanying voluptuous sensations were most prominent. The psychopathic basis of this condition is unquestionable.

In addition to these two categories of sadism, which for the most part depend upon morbid conditions, we meet also with a symbolic form of sadism, where this manifests itself rather in idea than in reality, and where the person thus affected luxuriates in all possible fantasies of the infliction of pain and of abasement.[616] This mitigated sadism is certainly to some extent connected with physiological sadism. Thus the so-called verbal sadism is nothing more than an increase in, an emphatic instance of, the physiological voluptuous sighing and crying in coitu, whose influence in verbal sadism is increased, and exercises a stronger stimulus, by the accentuation of the animal, the brutal, the coarse, and the obscene. Verbal sadism is not a peculiar refinement of modern debauchees, but a phenomenon belonging to folk-lore and ethnology, an extraordinarily widely diffused mode of expression of the primitive sadistic instinct of the genus homo. In the popular speech of all countries we find that abusive terms and curses are intermingled with extraordinary frequency with sexual matters and ideas. The naïveté of this sexual depravity and cursing, with its thousandfold variations, shows its origin from the purely instinctive sources of the popular soul, as the celebrated brothers Grimm recognized when they devoted a careful, critical investigation in their well-known dictionary to the obscene verbal treasury of the Germans. A rich material for the study of the sources of verbal sadism is offered by the vocabularia erotica of Hesychios; also by the collections of local and provincial riddles and proverbs.[617] A typically developed verbal sadism is found among the Hindus, especially the women. The Indian erotist Vātsyāyana rightly deduces it from the various sounds which are uttered in normal coitus. In European brothels the verbal sadists and verbal masochists are well-known phenomena—men who find sexual enjoyment in the expression of the coarsest, commonest, obscene words, curses, and abusive language; in some cases by doing this themselves (verbal sadism), in other cases by listening to it when done by others (verbal masochism). Such verbal sadists, also, are the individuals described by A. Eulenburg (“Sexual Neuropathy,” p. 104) as “verbal exhibitionists,” people who gladly indulge in lascivious conversation in the presence of women, or who whisper obscene words in women’s ears. Many men visit prostitutes, not for the purpose of having sexual intercourse with them, but merely for the opportunity of such lecherous conversation. The following case, complicated by bisexual or masochistic features, is characteristic of this:

A leading merchant of middle age visits a cocotte from time to time, and puts on the girl’s silken clothing, whilst she must put on man’s dress; they then go out walking arm-in-arm in dark, unfrequented streets, and converse meanwhile in an extremely obscene, indecent manner; this alone suffices him for sexual gratification. During the whole time he does not touch the girl.

This sexual depravity and obscene language can also be conducted by correspondence. Thus we have a kind of “epistolary sadism” and “epistolary masochism.” The former, especially, is frequently employed in the circles of the “masseuses” and “strict governesses,” in relation to their masochistic clientèle, whilst the answers belong to the second category.

A remarkable symbolic form of sadism or masochism is represented by inunction and lathering, for the purpose of sexual gratification. Lathering with soap more especially is a phenomenon with which those who have to do with brothels are especially familiar. Either the man finds sexual pleasure in lathering the prostitute or he experiences gratification in the passive attitude when she lathers him. Some time ago, in a trial in which a man belonging to one of our leading mercantile houses was accused, I referred in my evidence to analogous occurrences in brothels and among prostitutes. This testimony was disputed by another physician, who stated that this “lathering” for the purpose of inducing sexual excitement was “unknown” to him. It is, however, a well-known phenomenon whose existence has been confirmed to me by colleagues in Berlin, and more especially in Hamburg. According as it is active or passive, it is respectively sadistic or masochistic. Whether, in such cases, a defilement of the woman’s person is effected, as in a case reported by von Krafft-Ebing, in which a man blackened his mistress with charcoal, is indifferent. The larval sadism consists in the act of manipulation, in the inunction or lathering.

As a last form of symbolic sadism may be mentioned blasphemy based on sexual motives, the so-called “satanism,” which played a great part more especially in the middle ages, and as the “black mass” constituted a peculiar cult, in which the Christian Mass was profaned by sexual practices, and was insulted to the uttermost. According to Schwaeblé, these obscene masses are still celebrated at the present day in two places in Paris. He gives a detailed description of such a black mass which was celebrated in a house in the Rue de Vaugirard.[618]

Passive algolagnia, masochism, the desire to endure pain and degradation and abasement of every kind, for the purpose of inducing sexual excitement, is perhaps to-day more widely diffused even than its converse.[619] The cause of this, which is to be found in the conventionality of our time, is a matter to which I have previously more than once alluded (vide supra, pp. 322-324, 467-469). This view is supported also by the remarkable fact that, above all, lawyers, leading State officials, and judges, constitute a disproportionately large contingent of masochists—that is to say, persons whose professional life gives them a certain unusual exercise of power, and whose profession imposes on them a strict official demeanour. Precisely these conditions, perhaps, arouse masochistic tendencies to activity, as a kind of liberation from conventional pressure and the professional mask.

The connexion between love, voluptuousness, and the suffering of pain, has already been discussed. In masochism there also comes into play the important element of abasement, a complete self-surrender of body and soul, self-sacrifice. The union of these perceptions and their voluptuous tinge has been beautifully described by Alfred de Musset:[620]

“My passion for my mistress had become extremely unruly, and my whole life had assumed a kind of monastic savagery. I will give only one example of this: She had given me her miniature likeness in a medallion. I wear it on my heart—many men do this. But one day in the shop of a second-hand dealer I found an iron scourge on the end of which was a small plate covered with little spines. I had the medallion fastened on to the plate and wore it in this way. The spines, which at every movement pierced the skin of my breast, produced in me the most peculiar ecstasy, so that I sometimes pressed my hand on the place in order to drive them deeper. I am well aware that this was folly; but love makes us commit many such follies.”

In masochism physical pain plays an important part. The “mistresses” have at their disposal an extensive instrumentarium for producing such pain, for masochists often have the most peculiar ideas regarding the mode in which their pain should be caused. Probably unique in their kind are the two following authentic cases, which my colleague, Dr. D——, in Hamburg, was so good as to report to me:

1. A rich Hamburg merchant, known among the prostitutes by the name of “Nail William,” had sexual intercourse only with certain prostitutes, who had to allow their nails to grow quite long and pointed. They had to scratch him on the scrotal raphe and on the penis until the blood flowed in streams. One day he consulted a physician on account of extensive œdema of the scrotum and the penis.

2. Another man had his scrotum sewn to the sofa-cushion with thick sail-maker’s needles. He sat for a while in this “fettered” condition, after which the strings were cut!

All possible cutting and stabbing instruments and burning substances are used for the gratification of the masochist’s lascivious love of pain; they have themselves scratched, bitten, pinched, burned, their hair torn out; they are trodden upon, whipped with switches or ox-whips; they have themselves “put to the question” in every possible way in special “torture chambers” or “punishment rooms.” Such a genuine torture chamber, in the house of a Hamburg prostitute, was recently described by the public prosecutor, Dr. Ertel, in Hamburg.[621] Of the dwelling of this prostitute the following account is given in the testimony of the examining judge:

To the side of the flat towards the bath-room is the door of entrance to the so-called “black room.”

The walls of this room, lighted by one window only, were covered with a coal-black material of the nature of calico, and the plaster of the ceiling was similarly covered; to the middle of the ceiling, proceeding from the centre of a black rosette, was attached a pulley, consisting of the usual rollers and blocks, made in this instance of metal, and furnished with a strong twisted cord.

In the dark corner between the window and the wall there stood a peculiar scaffold, made of roughly hewn planks, consisting of two similar parts placed side by side; the back of this scaffold was placed against the wall beside the window.

The purpose of this scaffold was not immediately apparent. Seen sideways, the form of this wooden structure was somewhat like that of a heavy, coarsely-made armchair; the upper parts of the arms were about the height of a man’s shoulders. To the framework along the upper edge there were attached five fairly strong iron rings, which were screwed into the wood. The framework ran on rollers, so that it could be moved about.

On the wall was hung on a nail a leather girdle with buckles; there was also a rope about the thickness of the finger, ending in a loop; there were also two dog-collars, part of a sword-stick, leather reins, and fetters for wrists and ankles, the former being heavy iron handcuffs.

The window in the wall separating the “black room” from the bathroom, the glass of which was frosted, was covered with special hangings. The inner side of the door of the room was also hung with black.

In respect to this “black room” A. testified:

“Z. insisted that one room should be entirely draped with black, as the ‘hall of judgment.’ He sent me pulleys from Cologne, by which he was to be drawn up and hanged.[622] This excited him, his face got quite blue, and it made him ‘ready’ for intercourse. I was afraid that it might kill him, and I only allowed him to have it done once.

“To the wooden framework in the ‘black room,’ Z. was securely fastened, so that he had the illusion that he was on the scaffold.”

In all large towns widely diffused masochistic prostitution subserves the desires of male masochists, and frequently also those of female masochists. These priestesses of Venus flagellatrix hide themselves commonly under the cloak of a “masseuse”[623] an “educationalist,” or “governess,” adding to this professional title the expressive adjective “severe” or “energetic.” “Wanda” is also a favourite pseudonym, which corresponds to the masochistic nickname of “Severin” (the principal character of Sacher-Masoch’s “Venus im Pelz”).

These women, the “mistresses,” treat their masochistic clients as “slaves” or “dogs,” and maintain this fiction not only in personal association, but also in correspondence—masochists are all passionate correspondents. The relationship also of the “lady” to her “page” is a favourite one (the so-called “pagism”). The nature of the relationship is clearly shown in the following original letter of such a masochist:

“Berlin, “June 7, 1902.

“Gracious Lady,—

“First of all I must sincerely ask your pardon for daring, most honoured lady, to write to you. I saw recently a lady with a glorious figure and magnificent hips enter your house, and I suspect that you are this lady. If you, gracious lady, desire a servant and a slave, who will blindly obey all your commands, and upon your order, as a slave, without any will but your own, will perform the basest and dirtiest services, I should be happy if you would be so gracious as to make me that slave, if I might visit you from time to time in order to serve you, my strict mistress and commander. If at any time I should fail to obey you absolutely, you can treat me most cruelly and chastise me most severely.

“Will you, gracious lady, deign to answer me, your basest servant, and to make use of the enclosed envelope to tell me if you, this evening, will go for a walk, and how, and where, in what café you may chance to spend the evening, and if you will be my strict mistress, and if I may venture to be your slave. Perhaps, most honoured lady, you could be at the Oranienburger Tor at eight o’clock precisely on Friday evening, with a rose in your hand. Full of subjection and abasement, obedient to your strict commands, and slavishly kissing your feet and hands, I am your most abject servant and your basest slave.”

Such a slave luxuriates voluptuously in the lowest services, in the most loathsome abasements, such as are indicated sufficiently in the names “coprolagnia” and “urolagnia.” I have in my possession a series of letters by masochists full of such things, described with the utmost particularity, some even in a poetic form (!), which I cannot print on account of their loathsome contents. A sufficient idea of the slavery of the masochist is given in the above-mentioned report of the public prosecutor, Dr. Ertel, in which a “mistress” states:

“When I took my meals he lay either under the table, or in a corner of the room; I threw him bones, and gave him the remains of my own food. He often barked, and usually had a dog-collar round his neck, with a chain attached to it. He had given himself the name of Nero, so this is what I called him. When anyone wished to come near me without permission, he bit him in the leg; this was the first step in a slave’s duty. He swept out my room, boiled potatoes, roasted meat for me, and did other work of the house. He also wanted to be my horse; I had to ride on him; he carried me in this way from one room to the other.[624] When he disobeyed me in any way, I had to use the whip. He related to me that formerly he had corresponded with a music-hall comedian who played woman’s parts, and subsequently had associated with him, but he got weary of this, and disappeared for a long time to get free from the man. He told me also that he was accustomed to make appointments in the Schaarhof (a street in Hamburg in which the prostitutes visited by the lowest classes of the population live). On Sunday evenings these women have many visitors, when the workmen have got their week’s money.

“Often I had to shut him up in a wardrobe, with a chain round his neck, fastened to the wall of the wardrobe, so short that he could hardly move; the door of the wardrobe was shut upon him.

“In my flat I had to give him a slave’s dress to wear, in order that he might feel himself to be fully a slave. I took away all his money, all the keys of his house, of his office, and of his safe, and returned them to him only after a night and two days. Z. only does this occasionally, when he is utterly beside himself; often he is quite reasonable. He does not associate with any decent people; the society in which he feels happiest is that of whores and other obscure persons; he has himself said this to me. Even the people who make use of him avoid him in the street.

“He would also learn to dress hair, and how to paint the face, if I ordered him. Painted faces stimulate him.

“Once he said to me that I might have another slave; this I did. First of all I had to bind Z. hand and foot, and to wrap up his head in cotton-wool, in order to give the new slave the idea that he had been very badly treated, and had been sent to the hospital. When, later, the new slave came, and I explained everything to him as Z. had told me to, and led him in to see Z., the new man was very much surprised to see Z. tied up in this way, became frightened, and soon went home.”

Another prostitute reports:

“I made the acquaintance of Z. in No. 8, Schwiegerstrasse. He has three or four times had intercourse with me. He had himself whipped by me. Z. once asked me to fetch a man, which I did. This man got into bed with me, and satisfied himself manually, without having intercourse with me. Z. on this occasion lay under the bed: he wished to do so; I believe he had arranged this in order to obtain sexual excitement in this way. Z. and the other man did not see one another.

“When the other man had gone away, Z. did the most disgusting things.

“When Z. had himself whipped, he first had his hands fastened with iron handcuffs.”

It would be quite erroneous to assume that in the case of these masochistic “slaves,” whose human worth has been lowered to the depths, who seem completely to discard their humanity and to sink below the level of animals, that we always have to do with effeminate, degenerated weaklings. No; much more frequently they are healthy, powerful men, of an imposing appearance and distinguished demeanour, who find pleasure in playing such tragic rôles, and who obviously obtain sexual gratification by this complete reversal of their nature. The “slave” just described was “by nature tall and stately. His features were energetic and sympathetic, and he had a large beard. His eyes were clear and bright. In actions and appearance he was a thoroughly masculine being.”[625] In Berlin there exist masochists in high official positions, in appearance and in profession true manly natures—“supermen”—who only become “slaves” in relation to their “mistresses.” According to Sacher-Masoch, Germans and Russians especially are inclined to masochism; but, as a matter of fact, this tendency is also widely diffused in France and England. Zola describes such a type in “Nana.”

The slave type is not always completely developed; more commonly masochism manifests itself in a less marked degree. There are many and various shades: sometimes there is only a spiritual abasement, exhibited in apparently trifling procedures and practices (symbolic masochism). A few authentic cases will serve to illustrate this—they sound incredible, but are in fact true:

1. A handsome and fine-looking officer, married to a beautiful wife, continually associates with an elderly, robust washerwoman, with whom he also has sexual intercourse. Since he refuses to leave this woman, his wife has separated from him.

2. A State official of high position, fifty years of age, visits a prostitute from time to time, and puts on her clothing, with corset and stockings, while she wears man’s clothing. Then for two hours they play cards. At eleven o’clock he lays himself, still clothed, in her bed, whilst she must lie down naked upon the bed covering. Nothing else happens. He does not make the least attempt to touch her; and after a time he goes away, first paying her fifty marks.

3. An active Minister of State (!), now deceased, used often to visit a cocotte, who had to sit upon him, and then in corpus totum ei minxit. This was sufficient to give him sexual gratification (urolagnia).

4. An engineer meets a prostitute (who has been previously instructed what to do) in the street, and asks her if he may go home with her for twenty marks (shillings). Having reached the home of the girl, he suddenly declares with tears that he has only five marks with him. The prostitute overwhelms him with abuse, takes the five marks from him, and then carefully searches his clothing, until somewhere or other she finds a hundred-mark piece! The moment of the discovery of this piece of money is precisely the moment when the man has the sexual orgasm. In answer to his prayers and whining, to his pitiful request that she shall at least give him back half the money, he only receives scornful abuse. Finally, she presses one mark into his hand, and gives him his congé. This procedure is repeated regularly every fortnight—an expensive amusement for a man who is by no means wealthy. But he is unable to give up this peculiar passion, which for him is the only way of obtaining sexual gratification.

5. A man of the upper classes, thirty years of age, frequents only prostitutes with artificial teeth. They must take these teeth out, and he puts them in his mouth and sucks them. He then stretches himself upon the covering of the bed, and the prostitute must lay one of her dirty chemises upon his face, whilst he at the same time holds one of her shoes in each hand. This is for him the critical moment. To the girl herself during the whole procedure he does not direct a single glance; for him there exist only the teeth, the chemise, and the shoes. Thus we have to do with a case of masochism with mental fetishistic associations. The previously described medieval “cure by disgust” (the exhibition of a dirty chemise) would in this man have had the opposite effect to that intended.

Masochism is much commoner in men than in women, because the latter have more command over their sexual impulse, and are not so readily subordinated and enslaved thereby as are men. The physiological masochism of woman is of a more spiritual nature. Still, in women who are very excitable sexually a similar “sexual obedience” may appear to that which we encounter in men. Shakespeare, in the “Midsummer-Night’s Dream,” when he makes Helena feel herself to be Demetrius’ little dog, gives her definite masochistic characteristics.

Masochistically inclined, also, are women of good position who play the part of prostitutes, either in brothels or in the streets, such as have recently been described by d’Estoc in “Paris-Eros”; we may regard the celebrated Messalina as their prototype. Similarly disposed are women of good position who have enduring sexual relationships with men of the lower classes, such as workmen, coachmen, etc., and who even seek sexual enjoyment with any casual member of the rabble they may meet in the streets—a practice of which Lombroso has collected examples. Passive algolagnia also occurs in women, as is proved by the following letter of a typical masochist:

“Berlin, “November 9, 1902.

“Honoured Lady,—

“I allow myself to make the polite inquiry whether you will consent to visit me once a week, in my dwelling in the Kurfurstendamm, after your reception hour. I have a peculiar wish from time to time to be chastised in the most severe and energetic manner, until the blood flows. I am twenty-eight years of age, and widowed, and have a very large and luxuriant figure. For the flagellation I would pay fifty marks (shillings). If you accede to my wish, I beg you to describe how you intend to carry out the chastisement. On what part of the body will you whip me? In what way should this be clothed, if clothed at all? What instrument will you use for the whipping? In what position should I receive the whipping? How many blows should I receive the first time?

“After the sixth blow my voluptuous sensations increase to such a degree that my whole body trembles with sensuality. Are you yourself inclined to sensuality, and do you carry out this chastisement from purely voluptuous motives?”

We cannot determine whether in this case homosexuality plays any part. In my “Contributions to the Etiology of Psychopathia Sexualis” (vol. ii., p. 183), I have printed a letter of another unquestionably heterosexual masochist woman to an “energetic” man.

APPENDIX[626] A CONTRIBUTION TO THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION (HISTORY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF AN ALGOLAGNISTIC REVOLUTIONIST).

The author of the following sketch, the Russian anarchist N. K., was arrested in Warsaw in the early months of 1906. Like all those who at this time were considered to be members of the revolutionary party, the intention of the authorities was to shoot him immediately, without any elaborate inquiry, after a drum-head court-martial.

His demeanour during the shooting of his companions, who preceded him to death, and also during the court-martial, showed that his psychical individuality was so profoundly abnormal that the Colonel in command of the firing-party suspected him to be a psychopath, and on his own authority postponed his execution pending further examination in the citadel. While imprisoned K. wrote his reminiscences, which are here given word for word and without comment:

I.

My parents were opposite elements: my father, strong, coarse, brutal, egotistic, material to excess; my mother, suffering, delicate, sensitive, ethereal. From such a cross, a masochistic character must necessarily be produced. My father brought me up with storms, chastisements, and fear; my mother counteracted all this with caresses, kisses, and tears.... I trembled with secret anxiety and exulted inwardly at the same moment when my father stretched me across his knees. As soon as the punishment was over, he immediately proceeded to box someone’s ears—anyone’s, a footman’s, a maid’s, anyone’s. I ran with a smarting posterior to my mother. By her first my injuries were inspected, then I was cried over, embraced, kissed, and finally laughed at and with. This scene repeated itself at irregular intervals. To these years belong my first memory of the masochistic principle of life. This was based upon the following observations:

All my companions, boys and girls alike, endeavoured to play tricks on one another; to tell tales of one another to their parents, tales true and false; in every way to cause suffering, in order then, by redoubled love, to make all right again. On the other hand, I noticed that no child loved another unless it was tormented by that other. Those who did not torment one another were mutually indifferent.

This mutual tormenting and being tormented must therefore, in the nature of things, produce a certain charm, gives rise to a pleasure. This pleasure consisted in increasing, mentally realizing, sympathizing with, the pain of another. This is not sadism—generally speaking, sadism does not exist—it is only refined masochism; for we prepare pains in order to sympathize with them—that is, in order that we may free ourselves.

I especially enjoyed teasing girls, destroying their toys, tearing their dolls to pieces, dirtying their clothing, etc. When, thereupon, they wept bitterly, I fought against their tears, until finally they were consoled. Then I went close to them, embraced them, caressed them, kissed them, and cried with sympathy. What pain and what pleasure did I experience when they pushed me away, struck me, and spat in my face! I bought them once more finer toys, and was so happy when their tears gave place to laughter!

How often I told false tales of other children to their parents, in order to be able to sympathize with the mental pain of an undeserved chastisement! But I was no exception in this, because most of my playmates were the same. I remember how a girl of eleven calumniated a boy of twelve: she declared that he had put his hand on her private parts when she was out walking! The happy, poor lad was frightfully beaten at school and at home. All the children baited him, despised him, and avoided him like the plague.... He became quite afraid of his fellows.

What did I live through at that time?

Moody and spiteful, he lay under a tree; the girl who had told this false tale about him softly drew near, stood by him, and with a pleading voice called his name. Furiously he jumped to his feet, and wished to run away; but she seized his hand, fell upon her knees, and begged for his forgiveness. It was useless for him to abuse her, to strike her, and to tread upon her toes. She threw her arms round him, cried as if her heart was broken, and spoke tenderly to him for so long a time, until at last he sat down beside her, and allowed himself to be caressed. Thus they sat together for a long time, and wept and laughed and wept. Suddenly she seized his hand and pressed it violently between her thighs....

This contact formed the last link of a long logical chain....

These were the facts which first made me feel instinctively how, like every fundamental thing—everything which is of a primeval character: primeval force, primeval matter, primeval impulse, etc.—all represent the union of two extremes; the primeval impulse “love” can also be the coalescence of two opposites. These two opposites in this case are pleasure and pain; as in the case of electricity we have the union of the two opposites, positive and negative electricity; in the case of magnetism, we have the union of positive and negative magnetism; in the case of the atom, the positive and negative ion; in the case of sex, man and woman, etc.

II.

My years of school and University life were spent at St. Petersburg. Tempestuously I threw myself upon simple physical “love” (!), upon the orgies, upon all the varieties, of physical love. Bodily-sexual masochism, with all its artificial sensual charms, was a cup which I drained to the dregs; but I was never able to explain to myself why humanity was satisfied with so crude a definition of the idea of “masochism.” Sexual masochism is indeed one of the most obvious facts of life. But the same is true also of sexual love; and yet we do not maintain that love is only sexual impulse.

I passed beyond this physical masochism; it was for me a necessary phase of development. The spiritual element within me began to sway my existence. At this time I learned to love a girl of a wonderful character. She loved me to a similar degree of insanity.

Had I been a beggar or a tramp, she would have followed me through the streets. She would have accompanied me to forced labour in Kara, Kamtchatka, or Saghalien. For me she would also have mounted the scaffold; to save me she would even have become a prostitute. It was a blessedness to love her and to be loved by her.

How can we wonder that in conformity with this interminable love accompanying sorrows should also extend into infinity, and ultimately lead to a catastrophe?

Every night we slept together, although for months at a time we did not have sexual intercourse; we embraced one another so closely and slept so gently!...

To separate from one another only for a few hours was a torment. If I went out alone, I must tell her the precise moment at which she might expect me to return. If I remained away a quarter of an hour longer, Mascha at once pictured to herself that I had been run over by a tram, that I had fallen down in an epileptic fit, that I had suddenly become insane and jumped into the Neva, or that some other disaster had befallen to me. Thus she stood continually at the window, in order to see what was passing in the street. If anyone came up to our floor, she ran quickly to see who it was. If it was not I, then she felt horrible anxiety. When at length I came, she stood waiting for me in the doorway, laughing and crying at the same time. Then there followed embraces and kisses as if I had returned from a journey to the North Pole; but also reproaches, such as, “You do not love me at all; if you did you would not torture me so! You know how anxious I always am about you when you are away!”

Gradually I began to understand this condition, as an inevitable consequence of the masochistic principle of love.

This martyrdom of the soul, which lovers prepare for themselves in the unceasing dread of losing one another, or of losing one another’s love, is intimately connected with the very nature of love. Without anxiety of this kind, love would be unthinkable. He who loves must continually torment himself with this anxiety; and the stronger the love, the greater is this torment. When the torment is increased by the other’s participation in it, the mutual love is also increased thereby.

This necessity we also felt, and we resolved to procreate an illegitimate child.

What this step meant to us—members of leading families—can readily be understood; but we proudly resolved to defy society at large, in order to consecrate our love by the sorrows which this would entail.

III.

As soon as Mascha became pregnant, I felt an irresistible impulse to increase our mutual torments! To increase them!! To increase them!!! For our love did not appear to me sufficiently great, nor yet sufficiently worthy, nor yet sufficiently holy, for us to crystallize ourselves in a new living being.

This idea racked me continually. In vain I sought to convince myself that our love was a million times greater than the love of ordinary mortals, that it was unique!... Again and again my conscience said to me: “How can you use for yourself the measuring rule of ordinary men, even if they are the leaders of men? You are the conscious masochist! Your ideals must be suited to this fact! Is it anything so much out of the common to have an illegitimate child? You must increase your sorrows! Increase them!!”

(He proceeds to describe how in every possible way he tormented his beloved.)

At length, in consequence of my continued vexation, Mascha became as nervous as I was myself.... Now she really began to take everything perversely.

“Leave me in peace! It is your fault! You are driving me quite out of my mind!!”

On account of the most trifling matters we became furious with rage, mutually making one another more wretched and more bitter. Ten, twenty times a day, we stood facing one another, leaning forwards, shaking with wrath, our mouths gaping with anger, our eyes sparkling, our fingers widely separated, like tigers ready to spring; many times she struck me in the face or spat at me!

“Oh, you wretch! How I hate you!!! I should like—I should like——!”

Then we said to one another calmly and quietly that we did not suit one another; that we had been deceived; that everything was now at an end; we begged one another for forgiveness, and separated.

Soon came the pangs of conscience, the question, “Who is to blame?” Now the pains began: “What have I done? It is impossible that it can be so; I will beg her forgiveness upon my knees. She must be mine again—must be, must be!”

“Oh, love, love! How interminable is your pain!”

Now I began with nervous haste to say to myself, “Where will she be? With Katja? Up! Go to her and ask her!”

“Has Mascha been here?”

“Yes—she has just gone away!”

“Did she not say where she was going?”

“No!... Have you quarrelled once more?”

“H’m!... A little, but it was my fault!... I must find her!... Good-bye!”

At the house of A, B, C, and D she was not to be found. Is it possible that in her pain——? No, no! Not that! Not that!!

This pulsed in my temples, whilst I ran up and down the stairs!

Six o’clock! now she will go out walking on the Newsky-Prospekt!!...

At last I reach the Newsky-Prospekt! I rush up and down looking for her! Is that she? No! Or there? It is not she! That must be she? No—yes—no—yes, yes!... It is she.... Now walk a little more slowly.... Now she sees me.... She turns as if to pass by on the other side.... She changes her mind and stays on this side....

“Have you been out walking long?”...

Mascha lies in my arms. We cry and laugh—cry and laugh.... Never, never, never again!!... Forgive, forgive!!... We embrace one another, press one another, kiss one another, as if we could be absorbed into one another.... We abuse one another, pull one another’s hair, and playfully box one another’s ears.... Then we rub our cheeks together, and give one another the maddest pet names....

Oh, paradise of love! Why did I quarrel with my fate which imposed upon me such unheard-of torments?... Nothing else could have brought me such blessedness as this!!

Oh, fate! More, more, still more martyrdom!... In this way let my love grow!

IV.

Our life together became continually more intolerable, and yet we could not bear to be away from one another a single hour. A terrible fate chained us together, and threw us into the maelstrom of this furious impulse, irresistible in its elemental force. To tear ourselves apart was rendered impossible by the fetters that chained us together.

Continually more frightful, continually more insane, became our scenes, and the love-eruptions which broke out from time to time.

(After mutual spiritual torments, becoming ever worse and worse, K. begs his beloved to procure abortion!)

She wept quietly, then kissed me and went out....

The key grated in the lock....

“Mascha! Mascha! For God’s sake! Mascha! What are you going to do?...”

I shook the door like a madman.... It would not give way.... I tore open the window.... “Help! Help!”... The door was burst open.... Break open Mascha’s door!... It was quickly forced.... She lies there.... Dead.... Poison....

V.

Finally—after weeks—I was once more somewhat calmer, and was able to think a little. I had so utterly lost all power that I was only able to get from my bed to the sofa, or back again, with assistance. They had been afraid that I should not get over it at all.... Week after week to endure the most shattering, superhuman sorrows, to oscillate between death and madness!...

But superhuman love had also been mine! The statue of Saïs had been unveiled to me!... I had quaffed the cup of love to the last dregs!... But he only will have had this experience who has first drunk to the dregs the draught of sorrow!...

Oh, short-sighted world, which will call the murder of Mascha “sadism”!... Had not her pains cut twice as deeply into my own heart? Has not my soul been convulsed by her torment?... I wished only to torture myself!... Am I to blame that it was only possible to do so through her martyrdom?... Has not she shared also all my superearthly blisses?... He who has experienced this does not regret—even if he must pay double the price in sorrows!!

Is not that “masochism”?

Have you who wished to pass judgment on me learned that? No! Who will set up to be a judge of a case of which he knows nothing?

Oh, crude psychology, which teaches that out of an inhuman impulse—out of cruelty—we commit “crimes” on those nearest to us! Only from a purely human impulse—from “love”—do we do to the nearest to us what you call “crimes,” in order that he may share that unnamable happiness which we ourselves feel. Thus the influences which move us are purely ethical.

Do you believe that we only are masochists? Or do you believe that those only are masochists who have themselves trodden on by a prostitute, have had their ears boxed, have been whipped, befouled, and have let the prostitute spit in their faces?

Oh, idiots! I say to you all love is masochistic, and all which leads to it is associated with it, or results from it, bears the imprint “pleasure and pain.”

Nature never fails. Who, then, believes that it was caprice, chance, or irony, on Nature’s part, when she associated love with so much torment?

Who does not think of all the tragedies of unhappy love, with its murders and suicides, all its physical and spiritual martyrdom, which every day brings to us?

Who does not think of the tragedy of sexual love which is offered to us in the hospitals? all the hundreds of thousands who have to pay for the licentiousness which results from sexual lust—all the tabetics, syphilitics, general paralytics, etc.?

Who does not remember the torments which the sexually perverse have brought on themselves and on humanity? All the lust-murders! And all the punitive measures? The lust-murders which we commit—to prevent lust-murders!...

Who does not think of the torments of pregnancy? its risks of life and death?

Are all these mistakes of Nature? No! No!! The accompaniment of pleasure by pain must have some definite purpose. This purpose is: That pleasure, without its opposite, pain, would not be perceptible, would be unthinkable, would be inconceivable—just as cold could not be apparent to our consciousness without heat, or light without darkness. Thus pleasure, in the absence of pain, would not be perceived as pleasure. Therefore, by increase of pain, pleasure becomes of greater value, for the greater the contrast the more readily do we perceive it.

“Masochism is thus a natural law.”

The more fully it is developed in any individual, the higher, the more superhuman is that person.

VI.

Through the recognition of the masochistic natural law, I passed into a peculiar condition. Individual love and sorrow no longer made any particular impression on me. I began to observe masochism in the life and work of Nature, in the history of humanity, in social life, and in civilization.

Is not the great developmental principle of Nature based upon this—that the existence and progress of the species is dependent upon pressure exercised on it by its environment? The more difficult the conditions of existence, the harder the pressure of the environment, the more suffering the species has to bear, the stronger must be the reaction against these, the more strongly will the powers and capacities of that species become active, and by this the species will be elevated to a higher level.

“Thus suffering is the driving force of Nature. Nature is therefore masochistic!”

Within the species itself the same law holds. Within the “human” species have not those varieties developed to the highest which have had to overcome the hardest environment? Those who by nature have been troubled with the greatest difficulties in providing for their food-supply? Those who have suffered most?

Is not the existence of the living being dependent upon the “struggle for existence,” upon the mutual hostility of the species, striving for one another’s annihilation?

It is a characteristic trait of human nature that all religions are based upon the same fundamental principle: “Only by suffering canst thou become happy!”

Is not this true masochism, when humanity, by means of modern science, has also been robbed of the hope of a beyond, of the hope for eternity and blessedness, and is offered nothing in its place? Look at universal history!

Was not the birth of that great idea associated with frightful sufferings, with the influence of fire and sword, blood and death? Has not humanity crucified its greatest benefactors? Has it not rewarded them with the gallows, the torture-chamber, the wheel, the stake, the prison, and the asylum?

And all out of love for humanity!

All the persecutions of Christians and Jews, the inquisitions and burnings of heretics, witch-trials, the religious sorrows of all times—all were outflows of the love for humanity. Their aim was to safeguard mankind from the robbery of its happiness by heresy!