(T. Lipps, _AEsthetik_, Teil I, 1903.) By _Einfuehlung_ our own
interior activity becomes the activity of the object perceived,
a thing being beautiful in proportion as it lends itself to our
_Einfuehlung_. But by this action of erotic symbolism, on the
other hand, we transfer the activity of the object into
ourselves.
When the idea of erotic symbolism as manifested in such definite and
typical forms becomes realized, it further becomes clear that the vaguer
manifestations of such symbolism are exceedingly widespread. When in a
previous volume we were discussing and drawing together the various
threads which unite "Love and Pain," it will now be understood that we
were standing throughout on the threshold of erotic symbolism. Pain
itself, in the sense in which we slowly learned to define it in this
relationship--as a state of intense emotional excitement--may, under a
great variety of special circumstances, become an erotic symbol and afford
the same relief as the emotions normally accompanying the sexual act.
Active algolagnia or sadism is thus a form of erotic symbolism; passive
algolagnia or masochism is (in a man) an inverted form of erotic
symbolism. Active flagellation or passive flagellation are, in exactly the
same way, manifestations of erotic symbolism, the imaginative mimicry of
coitus.
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