HATRED AND LOVE OF CRUELTY 131 



that though various Asiatic races have appreciated the 

 smoke of various herbs and enjoyed inhaling it from 

 time immemorial, yet there was no definite " smoking " 

 in earlier times. No pipes or rolled-up packets of dried 

 leaves to be placed in the mouth and sucked whilst 

 slowly burning were in use before the introduction 

 of tobacco by Europeans, who brought the tobacco- 

 plant from America and the mode of enjoying its 

 smoke, and passed on its seeds to the people of Turkey, 

 Persia, India, China, and Japan. 



41. Cruelty, Pain and Knowledge 



It is difficult to write or to read or even to think 

 about "cruelty" and preserve one's sober judgment and 

 reason. Most people are upset by emotion when torture 

 and the details of the infliction of pain are discussed 

 All the more must we remember that emotion is a power- 

 ful driving force, but a bad guide. Only true knowledge 

 and sound reasoning can guide us aright. 



An awful fact about the emotional state produced by 

 witnessing or hearing about the agonies of human beings 

 or of sentient animals is that to some people (actually 

 very few and diminishing in number among civilised 

 races) it is distinctly a source of pleasure, though to 

 most of us it is intolerably painful. This fact forms 

 one of the most difficult problems of psychology. It 

 seems that just as there are people who enjoy seeing 

 dangerous acrobatic performances or climbing themselves 

 among ice and rocks at the risk of their lives, or reading 

 of hairbreadth escapes, of bloody murders, of ghosts, 

 and other horrors all of which are repulsive to the 

 majority so there are some people who experience 

 delicious shudderings " des frissons exquis " when 

 they see a man or an animal in torture or read a descrip- 

 tion of such things. In the eighteenth century it was 



