The violent-tempered man becomes once more a primitive, when he yields to wrath.

A starved and repressed side of his nature--the old Adam, in fact--leaps up into consciousness and glories in its strength.

He obtains from the explosion an immense feeling of relief; and so too with the other great natural passions which our religious or social morality keeps in check.

Even the saints have known these revenges of natural instincts too violently denied.

Thoughts of obscene words and gestures came unasked to torment the pure soul of Catherine of Siena.[68] St.
Teresa complained that the devil sometimes sent her so offensive a spirit of bad temper that she could eat people up.[69] Games and sport of a combative or destructive kind provide an innocent outlet for a certain amount of this unused ferocity; and indeed the chief function of games in the modern state is to help us avoid occasions of sin.