3 io THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



motives to study and mental advancement. In the fight and struggle 

 of party contests the pleasure of victory enters in full flavor ; and in 

 the competitions at school the same motive is at work. 



The social problem of restraining individuals in their selfish grasp- 

 ing of good things the mere agreeables and exemptions of the senses 

 is rendered still more intractable by the craving for the smack of 

 malevolent gratification. Total repression has been found impossible ; 

 and ingenuity has devised a number of outlets that are more or less 

 compatible with the sacredness of mutual rights. 



One chief outlet for the malevolent impulses is the avenging of 

 wrong, whether private or public. A convicted wrong-doer is punished 

 by the law, and the indignation roused by the crime turns to gratification 

 at the punishment. In the theory of penal retribution some allowance 

 is claimed for the vindictive satisfaction of the public. To think only 

 of the prevention of crime, and the reformation of criminals, and sup- 

 pressing all resentful feeling, is a severe and ascetic view, beyond hu- 

 man nature as at present constituted. The privacy of the punishments 

 of criminals, in our modern system, is intended to keep the indulgence 

 within bounds. 



A wide ideal scope is given to our resentful pleasures in history and 

 in romance ; we are gratified by the retribution inflicted upon the au- 

 thors of wrong. Narratives of evil-doers and of their punishment are 

 level to the meanest capacity ; this is the sort of history that suits the 

 imagination even of children. 



The highest refinement of the malevolent gratification I take to be 

 the creation called the ludicrous and the comic. There is a laugh of 

 vindictiveness, hatred, and derision, which carries the sentiment as far 

 as it can be carried without blows. But there is also the laugh ex- 

 pressed by playfulness and humor, in which the malignant feeling 

 seems almost on the point of disappearing in favor of the amicable 

 sentiment. It is of some importance to understand that in play, fun, 

 and humor, there is a delicate counterpoise of opposing sentiments, an 

 attempt to make the most of both worlds love and anger. The great 

 masterpieces of humor in literature, the amenities of every-day society, 

 the innocent joyousness of laughter all attest the success of the 

 hazardous combination. Nothing could better show the intensity of 

 the primitive charm of malevolence than the unction that survives after 

 it is attenuated to the condition of innocent mirthfulness. When the 

 real exercise of the destructive propensity is not to be had, creatures 

 endowed with emotions still relish the fictitious forms. This is seen 

 remarkably in the amicable " play " of puppies and kittens. Not being 

 endowed with much compass of the caressing acts, they show their love 

 by snarling and sham biting; in which, through their fortunate self- 

 restraint, they seem to enjoy a double pleasure. In the play of children 

 there is the same employment of the forms of destructive malevolence, 

 and, so long as it is happily balanced, the effect is highly piquant. By 



