Tell a man that an intimate friend has met with a great misfortune. His
first impulse is one of satisfaction. He himself is not aware of it
clearly, he does not realize it; nevertheless, essentially his emotion
is one of satisfaction. This man may afterward place his fortune, if he
has one, at the disposition of his friend, yes, even his life; yet this
will not prevent his first conscious reaction upon learning of the
misfortune of his friend, from being one which, although confused, is
nevertheless not far removed from pleasure. This feeling of
disinterested malice may be observed in the relations between parents
and children as well as in those between husbands and wives. At times it
is not only disinterested, but counter-interested.
The lack of a name for this background of disinterested malice, which
does exist, is due to the fact that psychology is not based so much upon
phenomena as it is upon language.
According to our current standards, latent evil of this nature is
neither of interest nor significance. Naturally, the judge takes account
of nothing but deeds; to religion, which probes more deeply, the intent
is of importance; to the psychologist, however, who attempts to
penetrate still further, the elemental germinative processes of volition
are of indispensable significance.
Whence this foundation of disinterested malice in man? Probably it is an
ancestral legacy. Man is a wolf toward man, as Plautus observes, and the
idea has been repeated by Hobbes.
In literature, it is almost idle to look for a presentation of this
disinterested, this passive evil, because nothing but the conscious is
literary. Shakespeare, in his _Othello_, a drama which has always
appeared false and absurd to me, emphasizes the disinterested malice of
Iago, imparting to him a character and mode of action which are beyond
those of normal men; but then, in order to accredit him to the
spectators, he adds also a motive, and represents him as being in love
with Desdemona.
Victor Hugo, in _L'Homme qui Rit_, undertook to create a type after
the manner of Iago, and invented Barkilphedro, who embodies
disinterested yet active malice, which is the malice of the villain of
melodrama.
But that other disinterested malice, which lurks in the sodden sediment
of character, that malice which is disinterested and inactive, and not
only incapable of drawing a dagger but even of writing an anonymous
note, this no writer but Dostoievski has had the penetration to reveal.
He has shown us at the same time mere inert goodness, lying passive in
the soul, without ever serving as a basis for anything.