because the self-preservative
hypocrisy of most pessimists enables them to conceal their
voluptuousness under the mask of pity.

Nor must we hide from ourselves the fact that even pity, which in
its pure form is the very incarnation of love, has a perverted form
in which it lends itself to every kind of subterranean cruelty. Our
psychological insight does not amount to very much if it does not
recognize that there is a form of pity which enhances the pleasure
of cruelty. There may indeed be discovered, when we dig deep
enough into the abysses of the soul, an aspect of pity which thrills
us with a most delicate sensation of tenderness and yet which
remains an aspect of pity by no means incompatible with the fact
that we continue the process of causing pain to the object of such
tenderness.

Of all human emotions the emotion of pity is capable of the most
divergent subtleties. The only kind of pity which is entirely free
from the ambiguous element of "pleasure in cruelty" is the pity
which is only another name for love, when love is confronted by
suffering. There is such a thing as a suppressed envy of "the
pleasure of cruelty" manifested in the form of moral indignation
against the perpetrator of such cruelty.

Such moral indignation, with its secret impulse of suppressed
unconscious jealousy, is a very frequent phenomenon when any
sexual element enters into the cruelty in question. But the
psychologist who has learnt his art from the profoundest of all
psychologists--I mean the Christ of the gospels--is not deceived by
this moral gesture. He is able to detect the infinite yearning of the
satyr under the righteous fury of the moral avenger.

And he has an infallible test at hand by which to ascertain whether
the emotion he feels is pure or impure pity; whether in other words
it is merely a process of delicate vampirizing, or whether it is the
creative sympathy of love. And the test which he has at his
disposal is nothing less than his attitude towards the perpetrator of
the particular cruelty under discussion. If his attitude is one of
implacable revenge he may be sure that his pity is something else
than the emotion of love. If his attitude is one which implies pity
not only for the victim but also for the victim's torturer--who
without question has more need for pity--then he may be sure that
his attitude is an attitude of genuine love.

The mood of implacable revenge need not necessarily imply a
suppressed je