omplete devouring of one
organism by another. Over a very large part of nature, as it has been
truly said, "but a thin veil divides love from death."[105]

There is, indeed, on the whole, a point of difference. In that abnormal
sadism which appears from time to time among civilized human beings it is
nearly always the female who becomes the victim of the male. But in the
normal sadism which occurs throughout a large part of nature it is nearly
always the male who is the victim of the female. It is the male spider who
impregnates the female at the risk of his life and sometimes perishes in
the attempt; it is the male bee who, after intercourse with the queen,
falls dead from that fatal embrace, leaving her to fling aside his
entrails and calmly pursue her course.[106] If it may seem to some that
the course of our inquiry leads us to contemplate with equanimity, as a
natural phenomenon, a certain semblance of cruelty in man in his relations
with woman, they may, if they will, reflect that this phenomenon is but a
very slight counterpoise to that cruelty which has been naturally exerted
by the female on the male long even before man began to be.

FOOTNOTES:

[83] Krafft-Ebing, _Psychopathia Sexualis_, English translation of tenth
German edition, pp. 80, 209. It should be added that the object of the
sadistic impulse is not necessarily a person of the opposite sex.

[84] A. Moll, _Die Kontraere Sexualempfindung_, third edition, 1899, p.
309.

[85] Fere, _L'Instinct Sexuel_, p. 133.

[86] P. Garnier, "Des Perversions Sexuelles," Thirteenth International
Congress of Medicine, Section of Psychiatry, Paris, 1900.

[87] E. Duehren, _Der Marquis de Sade und Seine Zeit_, third edition, 1901,
p. 449.

[88] See, for instance, Bloch's _Beitraege zur AEtiologie der Psychopathia
Sexualis_, part ii, p. 178.

[89] Krafft-Ebing, _Psychopathia Sexualis_, English translation of tenth
German edition, p. 115. Stefanowsky, who also discussed this condition
(_Archives de l'Anthropologie Criminelle_, May, 1892, and translation,
with notes by Kiernan, _Alienist and Neurologist_, Oct., 1892), termed it
passivism.

[90] _Anatomy of Melancholy_, part iii, section 2, mem. iii, subs, 1.

[91] "Aristoteles als Masochist," _Geschlecht und Gesellschaft_, Bd. ii,
ht. 2.

[92] _Die Kontraere Sexualempfindung_, third edition, p. 277. Cf. C.F. von
Schlichtegroll, _Sacher-Masoch und der Masochismus_, p. 120.

[93] See C.F. von Schlichtegroll