lt life under the stress of strong sexual
emotion. Such an association is of interest if, as there is some reason to
believe, the kiss of sexual love originated as a development of the more
primitive kiss bestowed by the mother on her child, for it is sometimes
found that the maternal kiss is practiced where the sexual kiss is
unknown.

The impulse to bite is also a part of the tactile element which lies at
the origin of kissing. As Stanley Hall notes, children are fond of biting,
though by no means always as a method of affection. There is, however, in
biting a distinctly sexual origin to invoke, for among many animals the
teeth (and among birds the bill) are used by the male to grasp the female
more firmly during intercourse. This point has been discussed in the
previous volume of these _Studies_ in reference to "Love and Pain," and
it is unnecessary to enter into further details here. The heroine of
Kleist's _Penthesilea_ remarks: "Kissing (Kuesse) rhymes with biting
(Bisse), and one who loves with the whole heart may easily confound the
two."

The kiss, as known in Europe, has developed on a sensory basis that is
mainly tactile, although an olfactory element may sometimes coexist. The
kiss thus understood is not very widely spread and is not usually found
among rude and uncultured peoples. We can trace it in Aryan and Semitic
antiquity, but in no very pronounced form; Homer scarcely knew it, and the
Greek poets seldom mention it. Today it may be said to be known all over
Europe except in Lapland. Even in Europe it is probably a comparatively
modern discovery; and in all the Celtic tongues, Rhys states, there is no
word for "kiss," the word employed being always borrowed from the Latin
_pax_.[202] At a fairly early historic period, however, the Welsh Cymri,
at all events, acquired a knowledge of the kiss, but it was regarded as a
serious matter and very sparingly used, being by law only permitted on
special occasions, as at a game called rope-playing or a carousal;
otherwise a wife who kissed a man not her husband could be repudiated.
Throughout eastern Asia it is unknown; thus, in Japanese literature kisses
and embraces have no existence. "Kisses, and embraces are simply unknown
in Japan as tokens of affection," Lafcadio Hearn states, "if we except the
solitary fact that Japanese mothers, like mothers all over the world, lip
and hug their little ones betimes. After babyhood there is no more hugging
or kisses; such