Page:Psychopathia Sexualis (tr. Chaddock, 1892).djvu/76

58 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. These examples form transitions to the pronounced pathological cases.

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. The one, like the