excitation, and its increase when the excitation has ceased. When the effects following the excitation have disappeared the diminution is more rapid than in the ordinary state. When the fatigue is manifested by a notable diminution, if the same excitation is brought into action again, no diminution is produced, but a more or less durable increase, exactly as though there had been an agreeable excitation. Moreover, the stimulus which appears painful in a state of repose loses that painful character either partially or completely when acting on the same subject in a more and more fatigued state." Féré defines a painful stimulus as a strong excitation which causes displays of energy which the will cannot utilize; when, as a result of diminished sensibility, the excitants are attenuated, the will can utilize them, and so there is no pain.[153] These experiments had no reference to the sexual instinct, but it will be seen at once that they have an extremely significant bearing on the subject before us, for they show us the mechanism of the process by which in an abnormal organism pain becomes a sexual stimulant. FOOTNOTES: [136] Erasmus Darwin, _Zoönomia_, vol. i, p. 496. [137] K. Groos, _Spiele der Menschen_, pp. 200-210. [138] Hirn, _Origins of Art_, p. 54. Reference may here perhaps be made to the fact that unpleasant memories persist in women more than in men (_American Journal of Psychology_, 1899, p. 244). This had already been pointed out by Coleridge. "It is a remark that I have made many times," we find it said in one of his fragments (_Anima Poetæ_, p. 89), "and many times, I guess, shall repeat, that women are infinitely fonder of clinging to and beating about, hanging upon and keeping up, and reluctantly letting fall any doleful or painful or unpleasant subject, than men of the same class and rank." [139] Groos, _Spiele der Thiere_, p. 251. Maeder (_Jahrbuch für Psychoanalytische Forschungen_, 1909, vol. i, p. 149) mentions an epileptic girl of 22 who masturbates when she is in a rage with anyone. [140] Krafft-Ebing, _Psychopathia Sexualis_, English translation of tenth edition, p. 78. [141] Stanley Hall, "A Study of Anger," _American Journal of Psychology_, July, 1899, p. 549. [142] Krafft-Ebing refers to such a case as recorded by Schulz, _Psychopathia Sexualis_, p. 78. [143] Féré, _L'Instinct sexuel_, p. 213. [144] C.F. von Schlichtegroll, _Sacher-Masoch und der Masochismus_, p. 31. [145] _Archivio di Psichiatria_, vol. xv, p. 120. Mention may also be made of the cases (described as hysterical mixoscopia by Kiernan, _Alienist and Neurologist_, May, 1903) in which young women address to themselves anonymous letters of an abusive and disgusting character, and show them to others. [146] Stanley Hall, loc. cit., p. 587. [147] _Archives de Neurologie_, Oct., 1907. [148] G. Stanley Hall, "A Study of Fears," _American Journal of Psychology_, vol. viii, No. 2.