brought forward many cases. He thus
defines this perversion: "By masochism I understand a peculiar perversion
of the psychical _vita sexualis_ in which the individual affected, in
sexual feeling and thought, is controlled by the idea of being completely
and unconditionally subject to the will of a person of the opposite sex,
of being treated by this person as by a master, humiliated and abused.
This idea is colored by sexual feeling; the masochist lives in fancies in
which he creates situations of this kind, and he often attempts to realize
them."[89]

In a minor degree, not amounting to a complete perversion of the sexual
instinct, this sentiment of abnegation, the desire to be even physically
subjected to the adored woman, cannot be regarded as abnormal. More than
two centuries before Krafft-Ebing appeared, Robert Burton, who was no mean
psychologist, dilated on the fact that love is a kind of slavery. "They
are commonly slaves," he wrote of lovers, "captives, voluntary servants;
_amator amicae mancipium_, as Castilio terms him; his mistress's servant,
her drudge, prisoner, bondman, what not?"[90] Before Burton's time the
legend of the erotic servitude of Aristotle was widely spread in Europe,
and pictures exist of the venerable philosopher on all fours ridden by a
woman with a whip.[91] In classic times various masochistic phenomena are
noted with approval by Ovid. It has been pointed out by Moll[92] that
there are traces of masochistic feeling in some of Goethe's poems,
especially "Lilis Park" and "Erwin und Elmire." Similar traces have been
found in the poems of Heine, Platen, Hamerling, and many other poets.[93]
The poetry of the people is also said to contain many such traces. It may,
indeed, be said that passion in its more lyric exaltations almost
necessarily involves some resort to masochistic expression. A popular lady
novelist in a novel written many years ago represents her hero, a robust
soldier, imploring the lady of his love, in a moment of passionate
exaltation, to trample on him, certainly without any wish to suggest
sexual perversion. If it is true that the Antonio of Otway's _Venice
Preserved_ is a caricature of Shaftesbury, then it would appear that one
of the greatest of English statesmen was supposed to exhibit very
pronounced and characteristic masochistic tendencies; and in more recent
days masochistic expressions have been noted as occurring in the
love-letters of so emphatically virile a state