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instead of an advantage directly compensatory of his injury (that is, instead of an equalisation in money, lands, or some kind of chattel), the creditor is granted by way of repayment and compensation a certain sensation of satisfaction ⁠—the satisfaction of being able to vent, without any trouble, his power on one who is powerless, the delight “ de faire le mal pour le plaisir de le faire ,” the joy in sheer violence: and this joy will be relished in proportion to the lowness and humbleness of the creditor in the social scale, and is quite apt to have the effect of the most delicious dainty, and even seem the foretaste of a higher social position. Thanks to the punishment of the “ower,” the creditor participates in the rights of the masters. At last he too, for once in a way, attains the edifying consciousness of being able to despise and ill-treat a creature⁠—as an “inferior”⁠—or at any rate of seeing him being despised and ill-treated, in case the actual power of punishment, the administration of punishment, has already become transferred to the “authorities.” The compensation consequently consists in a claim on cruelty and a right to draw thereon.