Adultery, Lust, Malice: An Analysis of Complex Emotions

Bhagavan Das · Confusing Words Series · 10 pages

From chapter VIII of Bhagavan Das's The Science of the Emotions, in the third edition of 1924, on what he calls the complex emotions — those built from simpler feelings in combination rather than felt as single things. The governing image is given at the head: that if the springs of a stream are poisoned, all its subsequent length will show the taint.

Adultery is taken first, and treated as commonplace for reasons similar to those underlying sadism and masochism — it excites not merely lust but malice, and sometimes revenge or pride, so that its motive is rarely the one it appears to be. The shorter analyses that follow work the same way, each naming the components rather than the label: hopefulness as the converse of jealousy, then envy, malice, meanness, extravagance, insolence, craftiness and admiration. The file closes with the standing apparatus of this series — suggested reading, a list of the other commonly confusing words, and further reading. A searchable PDF of the second edition of 1908 is held in the Constitution of Man series.

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