t difficult to see that the simple impulse of
natural sensuality, or direct animal lust, is profoundly connected
with the creative instinct, and is indeed the expression of the
creative instinct on the plane of purely material energy. But it must
be understood, however, that neither the will to destruction nor the
will to sensuality are by any means always as innocent as the
forms of them I have indicated above.

It often happens indeed that this destructive instinct is profoundly
penetrated by malice and derives the thrill of its activity from
malice; and this may easily be observed in certain famous but not
supreme works of art. It must also be understood that the impulse
to sensuality or lust is not always the direct simple animal instinct
to which I have referred. What has come to be called "Sadism" is
an instance of this aberration of an innocent impulse.

The instinct of "sadism," or the deriving of voluptuous pleasure
from sensual cruelty, has its origin in the legitimate association of
the impulse to destroy with the impulse to create, as these things
are inseparably linked together in the normal "possession" of a
woman by a man. In such "possession" the active masculine
principle has to exercise a certain minimum of destruction with a
view to a certain maximum of creation; and the normal resistance
of the female is the mental corollary of this.

The normal resistance of the artist's medium to the activity of his
energy is a sort of aesthetic parallel to this situation; and it is
easy to see how, in the creation of a work of art, this aesthetic
overcoming of resistance may get itself mentally associated with
the parallel sensation experienced on the sensual plane. The point
we have to make is this: that while in normal cases the impulse to
sensuality is perfectly direct, innocent, animal, and earth-born; in
other cases it becomes vitiated by the presence in it of a larger
amount of destructive energy than can be accounted for by the
original necessity.

Thus in a great many quite famous works of art there will be found
an element of sadism. But it will always remain that in the
supreme works of art this sadistic element has been overcome and
transformed by the pressure upon it of the emotion of love. There
exists, however, other instances, when the work of art in question
is obviously inferior, in which we are confronted by something
much more evil than the mere presence of the sadistic impulse.
What I ref