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.
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