feeling is rare among women, as well as his definite recognition of the fact that the suffering of pain may call forth voluptuous emotions, shows that he was not insensitive to the charm of masochistic experience, and it is evident that a merely blood-thirsty vampire, sane or insane, could never have retained, as De Sade retained, the undying devotion of two women so superior in heart and intelligence as his wife and sister-in-law.  Had De Sade possessed any wanton love of cruelty, it would have appeared during the days of the Revolution, when it was safer for a man to simulate blood-thirstiness, even if he did not feel it, than to show humanity.  But De Sade distinguished himself at that time not merely by his general philanthropic activities, but by saving from the scaffold, at great risk to himself, those who had injured him.  It is clear that, apart from the organically morbid twist by which he obtained sexual satisfaction in his partner’s pain,—­a craving which was, for the most part, only gratified in imaginary visions developed to an inhuman extent under the influence of solitude,—­De Sade was simply, to those who knew him, “un aimable mauvais sujet” gifted with exceptional intellectual powers.  Unless we realize this we run the risk of confounding De Sade and his like with men of whom Judge Jeffreys was the sinister type.

It is necessary to emphasize this point because there can be no doubt that De Sade is really a typical instance of the group of perversions he represents, and when we understand that it is pain only, and not cruelty, that is the essential in this group of manifestations we begin to come nearer to their explanation.  The masochist desires to experience pain, but he generally desires that it should be inflicted in love; the sadist desires to inflict pain, but in some cases, if not in most, he desires that it should be felt as love.  How far De Sade consciously desired that the pain he sought to inflict should be felt as pleasure it may not now be possible to discover, except by indirect inference, but the confessions of sadists show that such a desire is quite commonly essential.

I am indebted to a lady for the following communication on the foregoing aspect of this question:  “I believe that, when a person takes pleasure in inflicting pain, he or she imagines himself or herself in the victim’s place.  This would account for the transmutability of the two sets of feelings.  This might be particularly so in the case of men.  A man may not care to lower his dignity and vanity by putting himself in subjection to a woman, and he might fear she would feel contempt for him.  By subduing her and subjecting her to passive restraint he would preserve, even enhance, his own power and dignity, while at the same time obtaining a reflected pleasure from what he imagined she was feeling.

“I think that when I get pleasure out of the idea of subduing another it is this reflected pleasure I get.  And if this is so one