responsible doer⁠—in brief, something living, on which, either actually or in effigie , he can on any pretext vent his emotions. For the venting of emotions is the sufferer’s greatest attempt at alleviation, that is to say, stupefaction , his mechanically desired narcotic against pain of any kind. It is in this phenomenon alone that is found, according to my judgment, the real physiological cause of resentment, revenge, and their family is to be found⁠—that is, in a demand for the deadening of pain through emotion : this cause is generally, but in my view very erroneously, looked for in the defensive parry of a bare protective principle of reaction, of a “reflex movement” in the case of any sudden hurt and danger, after the manner that a decapitated frog still moves in order to get away from a corrosive acid. But the difference is fundamental. In one case the object is to prevent being hurt any more; in the other case the object is to deaden