On the other hand, when murderous lust has been excited, lust itself often follows. Lombroso (op. cit.) alludes to the fact, mentioned by Mantegazza, that, with fear of being plundered by bandits, there was always a dread of brutal lust.[1] These examples form transitions to the pronounced pathological cases.
The examples of the degenerate Cæsars (Nero, Tiberius) are also instructive. They took delight in having youths and maidens slaughtered before their eyes. Not less so is the history of that monster, Marschalls Gilles de Rays (Jacob, “Curiosités de l’histoire de France,” Paris, 1858), who was executed in 1440, on account of mutilation and murder, which he had practiced for eight years on more than eight hundred children. As the monster confessed it, it was from reading Suetonius and the descriptions of the orgies of Tiberius, Caracalla, etc., that the idea was gained of locking children in his castles, torturing them, and then killing them. This inhuman wretch confessed that in the commission of these acts he enjoyed inexpressible pleasure. He had two assistants. The bodies of the unfortunate children were burned, and only a number of heads of particularly beautiful children were preserved—as memorials.
In an attempt to explain the association of lust and cruelty, it is necessary to return to a consideration of the quasi-physiological cases, in which, at the moment of most intense lust, very excitable individuals, who are otherwise normal, commit such acts as biting and scratching, which are usually the result of anger. It must further be remembered that love and anger are not only the most intense emotions, but also the only two forms of active (sthenic) emotion. Both seek their object, try to possess themselves of it, and naturally exhaust themselves in a physical effect on it; both throw the psycho-motor sphere into the most intense excitement, and thus, by means of this excitation, reach their normal expression.
From this stand-point it is clear how lust impels to acts that otherwise are expressive of anger.[2] The one, like the
- ↑ During the excitement of battle the idea of lust forces its way into consciousness. Comp. the description of a battle by a soldier, by Grillparzer:—
“And as the signal rang out, the armies met, breast to breast—lust of the gods!—here, there, the murderous steel slays enemy, friend. Given and taken—death and life—with wavering change—wildly raging in frenzy.” - ↑ Schulz (Wiener Med. Wochenschrift, No. 49, 1869) reports a remarkable case of a man, aged 28, who could perform coitus with his wife only after working himself into an artificial fit of anger.
