Kant with Sade

Author(s): Jacques Lacan and James B. Swenson, Jr.

Source: October, Vol. 51 (Winter, 1989), pp. 55-75
Published by: The MIT Press
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Kant withSade

JACQUES LACAN
TRANSLATED BY JAMES B. SWENSON, JR.

Thistextshouldhaveservedas a prefacetoPhilosophyin the Bedroom. It

appearedin thejournal Critique (no. 191, April 1963) as a reviewofthe
editionof theworksofSade for whichit was destined.*
That the workof Sade anticipatesFreud, be it in respectof the catalogue of
perversions,is a stupidthingto say,whichgetsrepeated endlesslyamong literary
types;the fault,as always,belongs to the specialists.
Againstthiswe hold thatthe Sadian bedroom is equal to those places from
which the schools of ancient philosophytook their name: Academy, Lyceum,
Stoa. Here as there,the way forscience is prepared by rectifying
the positionof
ethics. In this, yes, a ground-clearingoccurs which will have to make its way
throughthe depthsof tastefora hundred yearsfor Freud's path to be passable.
Count sixtymore for someone to say the reason for all of that.
If Freud was able to enunciatehispleasure principlewithouteven havingto
worryabout markingwhatdistinguishesit fromitsfunctionin traditionalethics,
even without riskingthat it should be heard as an echo of the uncontested
prejudice of two millenia,to recall the attractionwhichpreordainsthe creature
to itsgood, along withthe psychologyinscribedin variousmythsof goodwill,we
can only credit this to the insinuatingrise across the nineteenthcenturyof the
theme of "happiness in evil."
Here Sade is the inauguralstep of a subversion,of which,howeveramusing
it mightseem withrespectto the coldness of the man, Kant is the turningpoint,
and never noted, to our knowledge,as such.
Philosophyin theBedroomcomes eight years after the CritiqueofPractical
Reason. If, afterhavingseen thatthe one accords withthe other,we show thatit
completes it, we will say that it gives the truthof the Critique.
For this reason, the postulatesin which the latterculminates:the alibi of
For which it was destined on commission. I add here, because it's droll, that they put
*
themselvesin the positionof havingto re-commissionit fromme when the success of Ecritsrendered
it plausible ( . . . to the person who replaced me?)

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56

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whereit repressesprogress,holiness,and even love, anythingsatisfyimmortality

ing whichmightcome of the law, the guarantee whichit requiresfroma willfor
whichthe object to whichthe law referswould be intelligible,losingeven the flat
prop of the functionof utilityto whichKant had confinedthem,restorethe work
to itsdiamondlikesubversion.Which explains the unbelievableexaltationwhich
any reader not forewarnedby academic piety receives fromit. Nothing which
mighthave been explained about it will ruin this effect.
That one is well in evil,or ifone prefers,thatthe eternalfemininedoes not
draw one upward, one could say that this turn was taken upon a philological
remark:namelythatwhat had theretoforebeen admitted,thatone is well in the
good [qu'on est bien dans le bien],restson a homonymwhich the German language does not allow: Man fihlt sichwohlimGuten.This is how Kant introduces
us to his PracticalReason.
The pleasure principleis the law of the good which is the wohl,let us say
In practice,it would submitthe subject to the same phewell-being[bien-?tre].
nomenal successionwhichdeterminesits objects. The objection thatKant poses
to it is, true to his rigorousstyle,intrinsic.No phenomenoncan claim foritselfa
constant relation to pleasure. Thus no law of such a good can be enunciated
whichwould defineas will the subject who would introduceit into his practice.
The pursuitof the good would thus be an impasse if it were not rebornas
das Gute,the good whichis the object of the morallaw. It is indicatedto us byour
experience of listeningwithinourselves to commandments,whose imperative
presentsitselfas categorical,that is, unconditional.
Let us note thatthisgood is onlysupposed as the Good by proposingitself,
as has just been said, over and againstany object whichwould set a conditionto
it, by opposing itselfto whateveruncertaingood these objects mightprovide,in
an a priori equivalence, in order to impose itselfas superior by virtue of its
universalvalue. Thus its weightonly appears by excludinganything-drive or
sentiment- which the subject mightsufferin his interestfor an object, what
Kant thereforequalifiesas "pathological."
It would thus be by inductionfromthiseffectthat one would recover the
Sovereign Good of the Ancients,ifKant, as is his custom,did not furtherspecify
thatthisGood acts not as a counterweight,but,so to speak,as an antiweight,that
is to say by the subtractionof weightwhichit produces in the effectof self-love
whichthe subject feelsas contentment(arrogantia) of his pleasures,
(Selbstsucht)
insofaras a glance at thisGood rendersthesepleasures less respectable.' His very
words,as much as theyare suggestive.
Let us retainthe paradox thatit should be at the momentwhen the subject
is no longer faced withany object that he encountersa law, one which has no
otherphenomenonthan somethingalready significant,
whichis obtained froma
1.
We referto the quite acceptable translationby Barni, whichdates to 1848, here pp. 247ff.,
and to Vorlander's edition (published by Meiner) for the German text,here p. 86.

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Kant withSade

57

voice in the conscience,and which,in articulatingitselfas a maxim,proposes the

order of a purelypracticalreason or of a will.
For thismaxim to become law, it is necessaryand it is sufficient
that,when
tested by such a reason, it can be retained as universalby rightof logic. Let us
recall that thisdoes not mean that this rightimposes itselfupon everyone,but
thatit is valid forall cases, or better,thatit is not valid in any case [en aucun cas],
if it is not valid in every case [en toutcas].
But thistest,whichmustbe one of reason, pure even if practical,can only
succeed for maximsof a type which offersits deduction an analyticgrasp.
This type is illustratedby the trustthat is imposed in the restitutionof a
deposit:2the practiceof a depositbeing based on the two ears which,in order to
constitutethe depositary,mustbe plugged up againstany conditionthatcould be
opposed to thistrust.In otherwords,no depositwithouta depositaryequal to his
charge.
The need fora more syntheticfoundationwill be felt,even in thisobvious
case. Let us illustratein our turnits default,be it at the price of an irreverence,
witha retouched maxim of pere Ubu: "Long live Poland, for if there were no
Poland, there would be no Poles."
Let no one by some slownessor even emotivitydoubt our attachmenthere
to a libertywithoutwhich the nationsare in mourning.But its analyticmotivation, while irrefutable,here allows the indefectibleto be tempered with the
observationthatthe Poles have alwaysdistinguishedthemselvesby a remarkable
resistanceto the eclipsesof Poland, and even to the deplorationwhichfollowed.
One rediscoverswhat founds Kant's expression of the regret that,in the
experience of the moral law, no intuitionoffersa phenomenal object.
We would agree that,throughoutthe Critique,thisobject slipsaway. But it
can be divined by the trace which is leftby the implacable pursuitwhich Kant
brings to demonstratingits elusivenessand out of which the work draws this
eroticism,doubtless innocent,but perceptible,whose well-foundednesswe will
show in the nature of the said object.
This is whywe request that those of our readers who are stillin a virginal
relationto the Critique,not havingread it,stop at thisverypoint of our lines,to
take them up again afterwards.They should check whetherit indeed has the
effectthat we say it has; we promise them, in any case, the pleasure that the
exploit communicates.
The otherswillnow followus intoPhilosophy
in theBedroom,intoitsreading
at the veryleast.
It turnsout to be a pamphlet,but a dramaticone in whicha stage lighting
permitsboth the dialogue and the action to continueto the limitsof the imaginable: this lightingdims a moment to give way, pamphlet withinthe pamphlet,
Cf. the Remark to Theorem III of the firstchapterof the AnalyticofPure PracticalReason,
2.
Barni, p. 163; Vorlander, p. 31.

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58

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to a diatribe entitled: "Frenchmen, yet another effortif you want to be

republicans.. ."
What is enunciated there is usually understood, if not appreciated, as a
There is no need to be alerted by the recognized importof the
mystification.
dream withinthe dream, thatof pointingto a closer relationto the real, in order
to see in thisderision of historicalactualityan indicationof the same sort. It is
patent,and one would do better to look at it twice.
Let us say that the nerve of the diatribe is given in the maxim which
proposes a rule forjouissance,bizarre in thatit makes itselfa rightin the Kantian
fashion,that of posing itselfas a universalrule. Let us enunciate the maxim:
"I have the rightof enjoymentover [le droitdejouir de] yourbody, anyone
can say to me, and I willexercise thisright,withoutany limitstoppingme in the
capriciousnessof the exactions that I mighthave the taste to satiate."
Such is the rule to whichit is claimed thatthe willof all could be submitted,
if only a society'sconstraintwere to make it effective.
Black humor at best, for any reasonable being, to be distributedbetween
the maxim and the consent which it is presumed to have.
But beyondthe factthat,ifthereis somethingto whichthedeductionof the
Critiquehas accustomed us, it is to distinguishthe rational from the sort of
reasonable whichis only a confusedrecourse to the pathological,we now know
in the comic of the veryfunctionof the
that humor is the betrayer[transfuge]
insofar
as
it
animates
this psychoanalyticinstancewithan
Which,
"super-ego."
avatar and uprootsit fromthe returnof obscurantismin whichit is employedby
our contemporaries,can also spice up the Kantian testof the universalrule with
the grain of salt which it lacks.
Thenceforthare we not incitedto take more seriouslywhat presentsitself
to us as being not quite serious?We willnot ask, to be sure, ifit is necessarynor if
it is sufficientthat a societysanction a rightto jouissance by permittingall to
invoke it, for its maxim thenceforthto claim the authorityof the imperativeof
the moral law.
No positive legalitycan decide if this maxim can assume the rank of a
universalrule, since thisrank can eventuallyjust as well oppose it to all positive
legalities.
This is not a question which can be settledjust by imaginingit, and the
extensionto everyoneof the rightinvoked by the maxim is not the issue here.
One would at best demonstratemerelya possibilityof generality,whichis
not universality;the lattertakes thingsas theyare foundedand not as theywork
out.
And one would not want to missthisopportunityto denounce the exorbitance of the role whichis conferredto the momentof reciprocityin structures,
notablysubjectiveones, to which it is intrinsically
repugnant.
Reciprocity,a reversiblerelationbecause it establishesitselfupon a simple
line unitingtwo subjectswho, fromtheir"reciprocal" position,hold thisrelation

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Kant withSade

59

to be equivalent,can only situate itselfwithdifficulty

as the logical time of any
the
in
his
of
relation
the
to
subject
crossing-over
signifier,and stillless as a stage
of any development,whetheror not it is admissibleas psychic(where it is always
easy to pass the buck to the child when the pedagogical intentionmisses the
mark).
Whateverit may be, it is already a point in favorof our maxim that it can
serveas the paradigmof a statementwhichexcludes as such reciprocity(reciprocityand not tradingplaces).
Anyjudgment about the infamousorder thatwould enthroneour maximis
thusindifferent
to the matter,whichis to recognizeor refuseit the characterof a
rule admissibleas universalin ethics,the ethicswhichsince Kant is recognizedas
an unconditionalpractice of reason.
It is obviously necessaryto recognize in it this character for the simple
reason that its very proclamation(its kerygma)has the virtue of institutingat
once - both thisradical rejectionof the pathological,of any concern fora good,
fora passion,even fora compassion,thatis, the rejectionby whichKant liberates
the field of the moral law--and the form of this law which is also its only
substance,inasmuchas the will is only obligated to dismissfromits practiceany
reason which is not that of its maxim itself.
Certainlythese two imperatives,between which moral experience can be
of life,are, in the Sadian paradox, imposedon us
stretched,to the breaking-point
as upon the Other, and not as upon ourselves.
But thisdistanceonly existsat firstsight,for the moral imperativedoes no
less in a latentfashion,since it is fromthe Other thatitscommandmentmakesits
demand on us.
One perceiveshere the naked revelationof whatthe parody made above of
the obvious universalityof the duty of the depositarywould lead us to, namely
thatthe bipolarityby whichthe moral Law institutesitselfis nothingother than
this splittingof the subject which occurs in any interventionof the signifier:
namelythatof the subject of the enunciationfromthe subject of the statement.
The moral Law has no otherprinciple.Still it is necessarythatit be patent,
lest it lend itselfto the mystification
feltin the gag of "Long live Poland!"
In which the Sadian maxim,by pronouncingitselffromthe mouth of the
Other, is more honest than appealing to the voice within,since it unmasksthe
splitting,usuallyconjured away, of the subject.
The subject of the enunciationdetaches itselfhere just as clearlyas from
"Long live Poland!" whereonlythatfunwhichis alwaysevoked by itsmanifestation is isolated.
In order to confirmthis perspective one need only refer back to the
doctrineupon whichSade himselffoundsthe reign of his principle.It is thatof
the rightsof man. It is because no man can be the propertyof anotherman, nor
in any way be his privilege,that he cannot make thisthe pretextto suspend the
rightof all to enjoymentover him [droitde toush jouir de lui], each according to

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his taste." The constrainthe would undergo would not be so much one of
for whoever makes it a judgment,
violence as one of principle,the difficulty
being not so much to make him consent to it, as to pronounce it in his place.
It is thusindeed the Other as free,it is the freedomof the Other, whichthe
discourseof the righttojouissanceposes as the subjectof itsenunciation,and not
in a manner which differsfrom the You are [Tu es] which is evoked in the
murderouscapital [fondstuant]of any imperative.
But thisdiscourseis no less determiningforthe subjectof the statement,in
thateach address suscitateshimthroughitsequivocal content:sincejouissance,by
shamelesslyconfessingitselfeven as it speaks,makes itselfone pole of a couple of
which the other is in the hollow which it is already drillingin the place of the
Other in order to erect the cross of Sadian experience there.
Let us suspend saying what makes it work, in order to recall that pain,
whichhere projectsitspromiseof ignominy,only confirmsthe express mention
that Kant makes of it among the connotationsof moral experience. What it is
worthforSadian experience willbe betterseen by approachingit throughwhat,
in the artificeof the Stoics, would dismantlethis experience: contempt.
Imagine a revivalof Epictetusin Sadian experience: "See, you broke it," he
says,pointingto his leg. Loweringjouissance to the destitutionof such an effect
where its pursuitstumbles,isn't this to turn it into disgust?
In which it appears that it is jouissance by which Sadian experience is
modified. For it forms the project of monopolizing a will only after having
alreadytraversedthiswillin order to installitselfin the mostintimatepartof the
subject which it provokes beyond, by touchingits modesty.
For modestyis amboceptiveof the conjuncturesof being: betweentwo,the
immodestyof the one being by itselfthe rape of the modestyof the other. A
channel which would justify,were it necessary,what we firstproduced by the
assertion,in the place of the Other, of the subject.
Let us interrogatethisjouissance,precariousin thatit hangs,in the Other,
on an echo whichit only suscitatesas it abolishes it, byjoining the intolerableto
it. Doesn't it at lastappear to us to exalt only in itself,in the mannerof another,
horriblefreedom?
We will even see the uncoveringof this third term which,according to
Kant, would be in defaultin moral experience. It is namelythe object, which,in
order to assure it to the will in the fulfillment
of the Law, he is constrainedto
send offinto the unthinkability
of the Thing-in-itself.
This object, isn'tit therein
Sadian experience, descended fromits inaccessibility,
and unveiled as Dasein of
the agent of torment?
Not withoutretainingthe opacity of the transcendent.For this object is
strangelyseparatedfromthe subject. Let us observethatthe herald of the maxim
does not need to be anythingmore thana point of emission.It can be a voice on
3.

Cf. the edition of Sade under review,vol. III, pp. 501- 502.

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Kant withSade

61

the radio, recallingthe rightpromoted by the supplementaleffortto which,at

Sade's call, the French would have consented,and the maximbecome, for their
regenerated Republic, organic Law.
Such vocal phenomena, notablythose of psychosis,indeed have thisaspect
of the object. And psychoanalysiswas not farin itsdawn fromreferringthe voice
of conscience to them.
One sees what motivatesKant to hold this object as having eluded any
determinationby the transcendentalaesthetic,even ifit does not failto appear in
some protruberanceof the phenomenal veil, lackingneitherhearth nor home,
nor timein intuition,lackingneithera mode whichis situatedin the unreal,nor
effectin reality:it is not only that Kant's phenomenologyis in defaulthere, but
thatthe voice, howevermad, imposesthe idea of the subject,and thatthe object
of the law must not suggesta malignityof the real God.
has educated men to pay littleattentionto thejouisAssuredlyChristianity
sance of God, and that is how Kant slips by his voluntarismof the Law-for-theLaw, which really piles it on, so to speak, withrespect to the ataraxia of Stoic
experience. One mightthinkthatKant is under pressurefromwhathe hears too
closely,not fromSade, but fromsome mysticnearer to home, in the sigh which
stifleswhat he glimpsesbeyond havingseen thathis God is faceless:Grimmigkeit?
Sade says: Being-Supreme-in-Wickedness.
Pshaw!Schwiirmereien,
black swarms,we expel you in order to returnto the
functionof presence in the Sadian fantasy.
This fantasyhas a structurethat one will findfurtheralong and in which
the object is onlyone of the termsin whichthe quest whichit figurescan die out.
When jouissance is petrifiedin it, it becomes the black fetish in which the
form- mostdefinitelyofferedin such a place and time,and stilltoday,for one
to adore the god - can be recognized.
It is thiswhichbefallsthe executor in sadisticexperience when, at its most
extreme,his presence is reduced to being no more than its instrument.
But thathisjouissancecongeals there,does not withdrawit fromthe humilof
ity an act to whichhe cannot but come as a being of fleshand, to the bones, the
serfof pleasure.
This duplicationdoes not reflect,nor reciprocate(whywouldn't it mutualone which occurs in the Other of the two alteritiesof the subject.
the
ate?)
Desire, whichis the henchman[suppbt]of thissplittingof the subject,would
doubtless put up withbeing called will-to-jouissance.
But thisappellation would
not render desire more worthyof the will whichit invokeswithinthe Other, in
temptingthiswill to the extremityof its divisionfromits pathos; for to do this,
desire sets forthbeaten, promised to impotence.
Because it setsforthsubmittedto pleasure,whose law is to turnitalwaystoo
shortin itsaim. A homeostasiswhichis alwaystoo quicklyrecoveredby the living
being at the lowest threshold of the tension upon which it subsists. Always
precocious is the fallof the wing,withwhichhe is given to sign the reproduction

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of his form. Neverthelessthis wing here has the task of raising itselfto the
functionof figuringthe link of sex to death. Let us leave it to rest behind its
Eleusinian veil.
Thus pleasure, down there the stimulatingrival of will, is here no more
than a falteringaccomplice. In jouissance's own time,it would be simplyout of
play, if fantasydid not interveneto sustain it by the very discord to which it
succumbs.
To put it another way, fantasyconstitutesthe pleasure proper to desire.
And let us come back to the fact that desire is not subject, in that it cannot be
indicated anywhere in a signifierof any demand whatsoever,since it is not
articulatablethere even though it is articulatedin it.
The takingof pleasure in fantasyis here easy to grasp.
Physiologicalexperience demonstratesthat the cycle of pain is longer in
every respectthan that of pleasure, since a stimulationprovokes it at the point
where pleasure ends. However prolonged one supposes it to be, it nevertheless
has, like pleasure, its term: the faintingof the subject.
Such is the vitalgiven fromwhichfantasywillprofitin order to fix,in the
sensible of Sadian experience, the desire whichappears in its agent.
Fantasy is defined by the most general form which it receives from an
algebra which we have constructedto this end, that is the formula(dOa), in
which the stamp is read "desire of," to be read identicallyin the retrograde
direction,introducingan identitywhich is founded upon an absolute nonreciprocity.(A relation which is coextensive withthe formationsof the subject.)
Be that as it may,thisformturnsout to be particularlyeasy to animate in
the presentcase. It articulates,in fact,the pleasure forwhichan instrument(objet
a of the formula)has been substituted,withthe sort of sustaineddivisionof the
subject that the experience ordains.
Which is only obtained inasmuch as its apparent agent congeals in the
rigidityof the object, in the aim thathis subjectivedivisionbe entirelysent back
to him fromthe Other.
A quadripartitestructure,giventhe unconscious,is alwaysto be required in
the constructionof a subjective ordinance. Our didactic schemas satisfythis
requirement.
Let us modulate the Sadian fantasywitha new one of these schemas:

d aV- S,

SCHEMA 1:

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Kant withSade

63

The bottom line satisfiesthe order of the fantasyinasmuchas it supports

the utopia of desire.
The sinuous line inscribesthe chain whichpermitsa calculus of the subject.
It is directed,and its directionconstitutesan order in which the appearance of
of itsrelation
the objeta in the place of the cause is made clear by the universality
to the categoryof causality,which,in forcingthe thresholdof Kant's transcendental deduction,would inauguratea new Critique of Reason hingingupon the
impure.
There remainsthe V which,in thisplace, holdingthe highground,appears
to impose the will [volonteldominatingthe whole affair,but whose formalso
evokes the union of what it divides while holding it togetherwitha vel,thatis to
say in posing the choice whichwillmake the$ (barred S) of practicalreason, out
of the S, raw subject of pleasure ("pathological" subject).
It is thus indeed the will of Kant which is encounteredin the place of this
will whichcan be called-to-jouissance
only to explain that it is the subject reconstitutedfromalienation at the price of being no more than the instrumentof
jouissance.Thus Kant, in being tortured[mish la question]"withSade," thatis to
say withSade fillingthe office,forour thoughtas in his sadism,of an instrument,
confessesto whatis plain to see about the "What does it want?" whichhenceforth
is not missingfor anyone.
The graph may now be used in its succinctform,in order to findthe way
throughthe forestof the fantasy,whichSade in his workdevelops on the level of
a system.
One will see that there is a staticsof the fantasy,by which the point of
aphanisis, supposed in $, should be indefinitelyrecessed in the imagination.
Whence the hardlybelievable survivalthat Sade grantsthe victimsof the trials
and tribulationswhich he inflictsupon them in his fable. The momentof their
death seems to be motivatedonlyby the need to replace themin a combinatory,
whichalone requires theirmultiplicity.
Unique (Justine)or multiple,the victim
has the monotonyof the relationof the subject to the signifier,in which,to trust
our graph,she consists.Being the objeta of the fantasy,situatingitselfin the real,
the troupe of tormenters(see Juliette)can have more variety.
The requirement,in the figureof the victims,fora beautyalwaysclassed as
incomparable(as well as inalterable,as we havejust said) is anotheraffair,which
cannot be takencare of withsome banal postulates,quicklyfabricated,on sexual
attraction.One willrathersee in it the grimaceof whatwe have demonstrated,in
tragedy,about the functionof beauty:a barrierso extremeas to forbidaccess to
a fundamentalhorror. Dream of the Antigoneof Sophocles and of the moment
when the
'Epw tv(tXaze,ckXav4 explodes.
This excursionwould not be appropriatehere, ifit did not introducewhat
could be called the discordance of two deaths, introduced by the existence of
4.

Antigone,verse 781.

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condemnation. The between-two-deathsof this side [l'en-deCh]is essential to

show us thatit is none otherthanthe one by whichthe beyond [l'au-delh]sustains
itself.
It can be clearlyseen in the paradox whichSade's positionwithrespectto
hell constitutes.The idea of hell,a hundred timesrefutedby himand damned as
the means of subjectionused by religioustyranny,curiouslyreturnsto motivate
the actionsof one of his heroes, neverthelessamong those mostenamoured with
libertinesubversionin itsreasonable form,namelythe hideous Saint-Fond.5The
practiceswhose utmosttortureshe imposes upon his victimsare founded on the
beliefthathe can render the tormenttheycause eternalforthemin the beyond.
A conduct and a belief whose authenticitythe characterunderlinesby his concealmentof the formerfromthe gaze of his accomplices,and by his difficulty
in
Thus
we
him
the
latter.
hear
few
a
later
to
render
them
explaining
pages
attempt
plausible in his discourse by the mythof an attractiontendingto bringtogether
the "particlesof evil."
This incoherencein Sade, neglected by Sadian specialists,who are sort of
hagiographersthemselves,would be clarifiedby noting the term,formallyexpressedin his writing,of the second death. The assurance whichhe expectsfrom
itagainstthe horrificroutineof nature(the one which,to listento himelsewhere,
crimehas the functionof breaking)would require it to be pushed to an extremity
where the faintingof the subject would be doubled: withwhichhe symbolizesin
the wishthatthe decomposed elementsof our body, in order not to reassemble,
be themselvesannihilated.
That Freud should neverthelessrecognize the dynamismof this wish6in
certaincases of his practice,thathe should clearly,perhapstoo clearly,reduce its
functionto an analogy withthe pleasure principle,regulatingit upon a "death"
"drive" (demand), this is what will not be consented to, especiallyby someone
who has not even been able to learn in the techniquewhichhe owes to Freud, any
more thanin his schooling,thatlanguage has an effectwhichis not utilitarian,or
ornamentalat the verymost. For him, Freud is useful in congresses.
Doubtless, in the eyes of such puppets, the millionsof men for whom the
pain of existingis the originalevidence for the practicesof salvationwhichthey
establishin their faithin Buddha, must be underdeveloped; or rather,as for
Buloz, directorof La revuedes deux mondes,who puts it quite clearlyto Renan7
when refusinghis article on Buddhism,thisafterBurnouf,or some time in the
'50s (of the last century),for them it is "impossible that there are people that
dumb."
Have theynot, iftheythinktheyhave a betterear than the restof psychiatrists,heard thispain in the pure statemould the song of some patients,who are
called melancholics?
5.
6.
7.

Cf. Histoirede Juliette,published byJean-JacquesPauvert, vol. II, pp. 196ff.

Subjective dynamism:physicaldeath gives its object to the wish of the second death.
Cf. Renan's preface to his Nouvellesitudes d'histoirereligieuseof 1884.

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65

Kant withSade

Nor gathered one of those dreams afterwhich the dreamer remainsoverwhelmed,fromhaving,in a conditionwhich is feltas an inexhaustiblerebirth,
been in the depths of the pain of existing?
Or to put back in theirplace these tormentsof hell, whichhave never been
imagined beyond those of which the traditionalmaintenanceis assured in this
world by men, would we beseech them to thinkof our daily life as something
which ought to be eternal?
There is nothingto be hoped for,even fromdespair, against a stupidity,
finallysociological, and which we only mention in order that no one on the
outside expect much, concerningSade, fromthe circles where there is a more
assured experience of the formsof sadism.
Notablyabout the equivocalityof whatcirculatesconcerningthe relationof
reversionwhichwould unitesadismto an idea of masochismof whichit is hard to
imaginefromthe outside the pell-mellit supports.It would be betterto findin it
the worthof a littlestory,a famousone, about the exploitationof man by man:
the definitionof capitalismas one knows. And socialism?It's the opposite.
Involuntaryhumor, this is the tone from which a certain diffusionof
psychoanalysistakes effect.It fascinatesby being also unperceived.
There are stillsome scribblerswho strivefora more fashionablelook. They
in
customtailoring,or more soberly,personalistready-made.
go forexistentialist
This leads to the statementthat the sadist "denies the existenceof the Other."
This is precisely,it will be admitted,what has just appeared in our analysis.
To followit, isn't it ratherthat sadism rejects the pain of existinginto the
Other, but withoutseeing that by thisslant he himselfchanges into an "eternal
object," if Mr. Whitehead is willingto give us back thisterm?
But why couldn't we hold it as a common good? Isn't that, redemption,
immortalsoul, the statusof the Christian?Not so fast,so as not to go too far.
Let us ratherperceive that Sade is not duped by his fantasy,to the extent
that the rigor of his thoughtpasses into the logic of his life.
For here we propose a duty to our readers.
The delegation which Sade makes to all, in his Republic, of the rightto
jouissance,is not translatedon our graph by a symmetricalreversionupon any
axis or center,but merelyby a rotationof a quarter of a circle, thatis:
V

a>

,S
SCHEMA 2:

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OCTOBER

66

no longerpermitsthe contestationof itsnature,for

V, the will-to-jouissance,
it has passed into the moral constrainthere implacablyexercised by the Presidente de Montreuilupon the subject of whom it is evidentthathis divisiondoes
not require beingjoined in a single body.
(Let us remark that only the First Consul8 seals this division with his
confirmedeffectof alienation.)
administratively
This divisionhere reunites,as S, the raw subject incarnatingthe heroism
proper to the pathological,in the species of the fidelityto Sade whichthose who
were at firstcomplacent toward his excesses will demonstrate,his wife, his
sister-in-law--hisvalet, whynot?-other devotions effacedfromhis history.
For Sade, the t (barred S), we see at last that, as subject, it is in his
disappearance that he signs, thingshaving reached their term. Unbelievably,
Sade disappears withoutanything,even less than in the case of Shakespeare,
remainingof his image,afterin his willhe had ordered thata thicketeffaceeven
the trace upon the stone of a name that would seal his destiny.
M l (P)vaqt,9
not to be born, his malediction,less holy than thatof Oedipus,
does not bear him among the Gods, but is eternalized:
a) in the workof which,dismissingit withthe back of his hand,JulesJanin
shows us the unsinkablesurvival,havingit saluted by the books whichmaskit,if
we believe him, in every respectable library,Saint John Chrysostomor the
Pensies.
Sade's work is boring,you agree in saying,yes, as thickas thieves,Mister
Judge and MisterAcademician,but stillable to make you one by the other,one
and the other,one in the other, get upset.'0
For a fantasyis indeed quite upsettingsince one does not knowwhereto set
it is there, whollyin its nature as fantasywhich only has realityas
because
it,
discourseand whichexpects nothingfromyourpowers,but whichdemands that
you set yourselfstraightwithrespect to your desires.
Let the reader now approach with reverence these exemplary figures
which,in the Sadian bedroom,arrangeand undo themselvesin a fairgroundrite.
"The posture breaks up."
Ceremonial pause, sacred scansion.
Salute the objects of the law, of which you know nothing, for lack of
knowinghow to findyour way among the desires of which theyare the cause.
It's good to be charitable
But withwhom?That's thepoint.

It should not be understoodby thisthatwe are creditingthe legend according to whichhe

8.
personallyintervenedin Sade's detention. Cf. Gilbert Lely, Vie du Marquis de Sade, vol. II, Paris,
Gallimard, 1957, pp. 577-580, and footnote 1 of p. 580.
Choir of Oedipusat Colonus,verse 1225.
9.
10.
Cf. Maurice Garcon, L'affaireSade, Jean-JacquesPauvert, 1957. He citesJ. Janin in La
revuede Paris of 1834 in his plea, pp. 84- 90. Second reference:Jean Cocteau, as cited witness,writes
that Sade is boring,not withouthaving recognized in him the philosopherand the moralizer.

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Kant withSade

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A certainM. Verdoux resolvesit everyday by puttingwomen in the oven

until he himselfends up in the electric chair. He thought that his dear ones
wanted to live comfortably.More enlightened,the Buddha allowed those who
did not know the road to devour him. Despite this eminentpatronage, which
could verywell onlybe based on a misunderstanding(it is by no means sure that
the tigresslikesto eat Buddha), M. Verdoux's abnegation derivesfroman error
which meritsseveritysince a small grain of Critique,it's not expensive, would
have allowed him to avoid it. No one doubts that the practice of Reason would
have been more economical as well as more legal, should his dear ones have had
to go without.
"But what," will you ask, "are all these metaphorsand why.
.
Molecules, monstruouslyassemblinghere fora spintrianjouissance,awaken
us to the existenceof others,more commonlyencounteredin life,whose equivocalitieswe havejust evoked. Suddenly theyare more respectablethan the latter,
appearing purer in their valencies.
Desires . . . here alone to bind them,and exalted by makingmanifestthat
desire is the desire of the Other.
Whoever has read us thisfarknowsthatdesire, more exactly,is supported
a
by fantasywhichhas at least one foot in the Other, and preciselythe one that
counts,even and particularlyif it happens to limp.
The object, as we have shown in Freudian experience, the object of desire
where it proposes itselfin itsnakedness,is onlythe slag of a fantasyin whichthe
subject does not returnfromhis syncope. It's a case of necrophilia.
Its vacillationcomplementsthat of the subject, in the general case.
It is in thisthatit isjust as ungraspableas the object of the Law is according
to Kant. But here the suspicion imposed by this connection begins to appear.
Doesn't the moral law representdesire in the case where it is not the subjectbut
the object which is in default?
The subject, by being the sole partyto remain, in the formof the voice,
within,withneitherhead nor tail to what it most oftensays,doesn't he seem to
signifyhimselfenough by the bar withwhichhe is bastardizedby the signifier
$,
dropped fromthe fantasy(tOa) fromwhichit both derivesand driftsaway [dont
il dirive,dans les deux sens de ce terme]?
If this symbolreturnsto its place the inner commandmentat which Kant
marvels,it opens our eyes to the encounterwhich,fromthe Law to desire,goes
furtherthan the elusion of theirobject, for the one as for the other.
It is in thisencounterthatthe equivocalityof the wordfreedomplays:upon
which, layinga heavy hand, the moralistalways appears even more impudent
than imprudent.
Let us ratherlistento Kant himselfillustrateitone more time:11"Suppose,"
11.
Barni,p. 173. It is the Remark to Problem II (Aufgabe)of Theorem III of the firstchapter
of the Analytic,Voriander edition,p. 25.

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he says, "that someone says his lust is irresistiblewhen the desired object and
opportunityare present.Ask him whetherhe would not controlhis passion if,in
frontof the house where he has this opportunity,a gallows were erected on
whichhe would be hanged immediatelyaftergratifying
his lust. We do not have
to guess verylong what his answer would be. But ask him whetherhe thinksit
would be possibleforhim to overcome his love of life,howevergreatit maybe, if
his sovereign threatenedhim with the same sudden deathl2 unless he made a
false deposition against an honorable man whom the ruler wished to destroy
under a plausible pretext.Whetherhe would or not he perhaps willnot venture
to say; but that it should be possible for him he would certainlyadmit without
hesitation.He judges, therefore,thathe can do somethingbecause he knowshe
ought, and he recognizes that he is free- a factwhich,withoutthe moral law,
would have remained unknownto him."
The firstresponse here supposed of a subject about whom we are first
warned that for him much happens in words, makes us thinkthat we have not
been given it to the letter,even thoughthat'sthe whole point. It's that,in order
to compose it,one would ratherrelyon a personage whose scrupleswe would be
bound [en toutcas] to offend,for he would never [en aucun] stoop to eating that
kind of bread. He is namelythatideal bourgeois beforewhomelsewhere,doubtless in order to check Fontenelle,the overlygallant centenarian,Kant declares
that he tips his hat.13
We will thus exempt the naughtyboy fromtestifying
under oath. But it
a
that
of
and
who
one
would
be blindenough to
supporter passion,
mighthappen
mix a point of honor in with it, could give Kant problems, forcinghim to
recognizethatno occasion willmore certainlyprecipitatesome men towardtheir
end, than to see it offeredas a challenge to, or even in contemptof, the gallows.
For the gallows is not the Law, it can't even be drivenaround by it. The
bus
is the paddy wagon, and the police mightwell be the state,as is said
only
among the followersof Hegel. But the Law is somethingelse, as has been known
since Antigone.
Kant's apologue doesn't even contradictthis:the gallowsonlycomes into it
in order for him to tie up on it, along with the subject, his love of life.
And it is this to which desire in the maxim Et non proptervitamvivendi
perderecausas can pass in a moral being, and, preciselybecause he is moral,pass
to the rank of a categoricalimperative,however littlehe may be up against the
wall. Which is preciselywhere he is now being pushed.
Desire, what is called desire sufficesto make lifehave no sense in playinga
coward. And when the law is trulythere,desire doesn't hold, but that'sbecause
the law and repressed desire are one and the same thing;this is even Freud's
discovery.We score a point at halftime,professor.
12.
13.

The text reads: witha death withoutdelay.

Cf. p. 253 of Barni's translationwithp. 90 in Vorlander's edition.

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Kant withSade

69

Let us place the creditforour success in the ranksof the pawns, queen of
the game as we know. For we have broughtinto play neitherour Knight,with
whichwe could have easilywon the game, forit would have been Sade, whomwe
believe to be well-qualifiedin thismatter-nor our Bishop [Fou], nor our Rook
[Tour],the rightsof man, freedomof thought,your body is your own, nor even
our Queen [Dame], an appropriate figureto designatethe prowessesof courtly
love.
This would have meant movingtoo many people, for a less certainresult.
For ifI argue thatSade, fora fewjokes, ran the risk,in fullknowledge(see
what he makes of his "escapades," legal or not), of being imprisonedduring a
thirdof his life,jokes whichdoubtlesswere a littletoo much in earnest,but all the
more demonstrativewithrespectto theirrecompense,I draw upon myselfPinel
and his pinellrywhich comes up again. Moral insanity,it opines. A lovelybusiness, in any case. I am here recalled to reverenceforPinel, to whomwe owe one
of the mostnoble stepsof humanity.- Thirteenyearsof CharentonforSade, in
fact,come fromthis step. -But it wasn't his place. -That's just it. It is this
very step which leads him there. For as to his place, everythingwhich thinks
agrees about this,it was elsewhere. But see: those who thinkwell, thinkit was
since Royer-Collard,who demanded itat the time,
outside,and the well-thinkers,
saw it injail, even on the scaffold.It is preciselyin thisthat Pinel is a momentof
thought. Willinglyor unwillingly,he is the guarantee for the prostrationto
which, to the left and to the right,thought submits the libertieswhich the
Revolution had promulgatedin its name.
For in consideringthe rightsof man fromthe point of view of philosophy,
we see the appearance of what in any case everyone now knows of their truth.
They are reducible to the freedomto desire in vain.
A finetriumphindeed, but an opportunityto recognize in it our reckless
freedomof a momentago, and to confirmthat it is indeed the freedomto die.
But also to draw upon ourselvesthe frownsof those who don't findit very
nourishing.They are numerous these days. A renewal of the conflictbetween
needs and desires,where as if by chance it is the Law which empties the shell.
For the move whichwould check the Kantian apologue, courtlylove offers
no less temptinga path, but one whichrequires being erudite. Being erudite by
position,one draws the erudite upon oneself,and as forthe erudite in thisfield,
bring on the clowns.
Already Kant would for next to nothingmake us lose our seriousness,for
lack of the least sense of the comic (the proof is what he says of it in its place).
But someone who lacks it, himself,totallyand absolutely,if you've remarked,is Sade. This thresholdwould perhaps be fatal to him and a preface is
not made for disservices.'4
Thus let us pass to the second momentof Kant's apologue. It is no more
14.

What would I have writtenfor a postface?

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70

conclusive to his ends. For supposingthat his helot has the least idea of what's
happening,he will ask him [i.e., Kant] if by chance it would be his dutyto bear
true witness,in case this were the means by which the tyrantcould satisfyhis
wishes.
Should he say thatthe innocentis a Jew forexample, ifhe trulyis, beforea
tribunal,such as has been seen, whichwould findin thissomethingto condemn
-or yetthathe is an atheist,just when it is possiblethathe himselfis a man who
would betterunderstandthe weightof the accusation than a consistory,which
only wants a dossier-and the deviation from the "line," will he plead it not
- and then
guiltyin a place and time when the rule of the game is self-criticism
what?afterall, is an innocentever spotless,will he say what he knows?
One can erect as a dutythe maximof counteringthe desire of the tyrant,if
the tyrantis the one who arrogatesto himselfthe power to enslave the desire of
the Other.
Thus upon the two lengths(and the precarious mediation), from which
Kant makes himselfa lever in order to show that the Law puts into balance not
just pleasure,but also pain, happiness,or even the pressureof poverty,even love
of life,everythingpathological, it turnsout that desire can not only have the
same success, but can obtain it withgreater legitimacy.
But if the advantage which we have allowed the Critiqueto take fromthe
alacrityof its argumentationowed somethingto our desire to know what it
wanted to get at, could not the ambiguityof thissuccess turnback itsmovement
toward a revisionof the extortedconcessions?
Such as, for example, the disgrace which,somewhathastily,was brought
upon all objects thatpropose themselvesas goods, as being incapable of causing
the harmonyof wills:simplyby introducingcompetition.Thus Milan, in which
Charles V and FranCoisI knew what it cost them both to see the same good.
This is indeed to misrecognizethe nature of the object of desire.
Which we can only introducehere by recallingwhatwe teach about desire,
to be formulatedas desire of the Other, since it is originallydesire of its desire.
Which makes the harmonyof desires conceivable,but not withoutdanger. For
the reason thatin linkingup in a chain whichresemblesBreughel'sprocessionof
the blind, theymay indeed all be holding hands, but none knows where all are
going.
In reversingdirectiontheywill all gain the experience of a universalrule,
but will know no more about it.
Would the solutionconsonantwithpracticalReason thenbe thattheyall go
round in circles?
Even lacking,the gaze is thereindeed an object whichpresentseach desire
with its universalrule by materializingits cause, by binding it to the division
"between center and absence" of the subject.
Let us thenceforthlimitourselvesto sayingthata practicesuch as psycho-

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71

analysis,whichrecognizesin desire the truthof the subject,cannot misrecognize

what followswithoutdemonstratingwhat it represses.
Displeasure is recognized by psychoanalyticexperience as givinga pretext
to the repressionof desire, in that it is produced on the path of its satisfaction:
but also as giving the form this satisfactionitselftakes in the return of the
repressed.
Similarlypleasure's aversionto recognize the law is doubled, by supporting
that desire to satisfyit which is defense.
If happinessis the uninterruptedagreeableness,for the subject,of his life,
as the Critique'5quite classicallydefinesit, it is clear that it is refusedto whomever does not renounce the path of desire. This renunciationcan be willed,but at
the price of the truthof man, which is made clear enough by the reprobation
incurredbefore the common ideal by the Epicureans, and even by the Stoics.
Their ataraxia destitutestheir wisdom. They are given no credit for lowering
desire, for not only is the Law not held to be raised accordingly;but it is thus,
whetherone knows it or not, that it is feltto be throwndown.
Sade, ex-noble, takes up Saint-Justwhere one should. That happinesshas
become a factorin politicsis an improperproposition.It has alwaysbeen one and
willbringback the scepterand the censer whichget along withit verywell. It is
the freedomto desire whichis a new factor,not because it inspiresa revolution
-it is alwaysfora desire thatone strugglesand thatone dies- but because this
revolutionwillsthat its strugglebe for the freedomof desire.
The resultis that it also willsthat the law be free,so freethat it mustbe a
widow,the Widow par excellence, the one who sends your head into the basket
however littleit falteredin the affair.Had Saint-Just's
head remained inhabited
the
fantasies
of
he
would
have
made of Thermidor his
by
Organt,
perhaps
triumph.
The rightto jouissance,were it recognized,would relegate the domination
of the pleasure principleto a forevermoreoutdated era. In enunciatingit, Sade
causes the ancient axis of ethicsto slip, by an imperceptiblefracture,for everyone: thisaxis is nothingother than the egoism of happiness.
It cannot be said thatall referenceto it is extinguishedin Kant, in the very
familiaritywith which it keeps him company, and even more in its offspring,
whichone seizes in the requirementsfromwhichhe deduces as much a retribution in the beyond as a progresshere below.
Let anotherhappinessbe glimpsed,whose name we firstsaid, and the status
of desire changes, imposingits reexamination.
But it is here thatthereis somethingto be judged. To whatpointdoes Sade
lead us in the experience of thisjouissance,or at least its truth?
15.
Theorem II of the firstchapter of the Analytic,in Vorlander's edition,p. 25, completely
mistranslatedby Barni, p. 159.

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For these human pyramids,fabulouslydemonstrating

jouissance in its cascading nature,thesetieredfountainsof desire builtforjouissanceto cast upon the
d'Este gardensthe iridescenceof a baroque voluptousness,the highertheymake
it gush into the sky,the closer we are drawn by the question of what is dripping
there.
Of the unpredicatablequanta withwhichthe love-hateatom shimmersnear
the Thing whenceman emergeswitha cry,whatis felt,beyond certainlimits,has
nothingto do withwhatsupportsdesire in fantasy,whichis preciselyconstituted
by these limits.
These limits,we know that in his life Sade went beyond them.
And doubtless he would otherwisenot have given us thisblueprintof his
fantasyin his work.
Perhaps we should be astonishedby puttinginto question what,of thisreal
experience, the work would also translate.
To limit ourselves to the bedroom, for a sharp enough glimpse of the
sentimentsof a girltowardher mother,the factremainsthatwickedness,sojustly
situated by Sade in its transcendence,teaches us nothing very new about the
modulationsof her heart.
A work whichwillsitselfto be wicked [michante]could not permititselfto
be a mediocre [michante]work,and it mustbe said thatthePhilosophy,
bya whole
side of good work, lends itselfto this witticism.
There's a littletoo much preaching in there.
Doubtless it is a treatiseon the education of girls'6and as such submittedto
the laws of the genre. Despite the advantage it gains by exposingthe anal-sadistic
whichclouded over the subject in its obsessionalinsistencein the two preceding
centuries,it remainsa treatiseon education. The sermonis excruciatingforthe
on the part of the instructor.
victim,self-infatuated
The historical,or rather,erudite informationis greyand makes one regret
a La Mothe le Vayer. The physiologyis composed of old wives'tales. As faras the
sexual education is concerned,it sounds like a contemporarymedical pamphlet;
no more need be said.
Strongercommitmentto scandal would mean going on to recognize in the
impotencein whichthe educative intentionis commonlydeployed,the veryone
againstwhichthe fantasymakesall itseffortshere: whence is born the obstacleto
any valid account of the effectsof education,since the partof the intentionwhich
caused the resultscannot be avowed.
This traitcould have been priceless,one of the laudable effectsof sadistic
impotence. That Sade missed it means that somethingremainsto be thought.
His failingis confirmedby another no less remarkable: the work never
presentsus withthe success of a seductionin whichthe fantasywould nevertheless be crowned: thatby whichthe victim,be it in her finalspasm,would come to
16.

Sade expresslyindicatesit in his complete title.

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73

consent to the intentionof her tormentor,or would even enroll herselfon his
side by the verve of her consent.
This demonstratesfromanother point of view that desire is the other side
of the law. In the Sadian fantasy,one sees how theysustaineach other. For Sade,
one is alwayson the same side, eitherthe good or the bad; no affrontcan change
anything.It is thusthe triumphof virtue:thisparadox onlyrecoversthe derision
proper to the edifyingbook, whichJustineaims at too much not to espouse it.
Apart fromthe lengtheningnose whichgivesaway the lie, foundat the end
of the posthumousDialogue Betweena Priestand a DyingMan (admit thathere is
an unpropitioussubject forother graces than divine grace), one sometimesfeels
the lack in the workof a motd'esprit,and more largelyof the witwhose necessity
Pope had spoken of almost a centurybefore.
Evidently,all this is forgottenby the invasion of pedantrywhich weighs
upon French literaturesince WWII.
But if you need a strongstomachto followSade when he extols calumny,
the firstarticleof moralityto be institutedin his Republic,one mightpreferthat
he put somethingof the spiciness of a Renan into it. "Let us congratulate
ourselves in like manner," the latter writes,"that Jesus encountered no law
which punished the invectivesutteredagainst one class of citizens.Had such a
law existed,the Phariseeswould have been inviolate."17And he continues:"His
exquisite irony, his arch and provoking remarks, always struck home. The
of ridiculewhichtheJew,son of the Pharisees,has dragged in tatters
Nessus-shirt
after him during eighteen centuries,was woven by Jesus with a divine skill.
Masterpiecesof fineraillery,theirfeaturesare writtenin lines of fireupon the
fleshof the hypocriteand the falsedevotee. Incomparable traits,worthyof a son
of God. A god alone knows how to kill afterthisfashion.Socrates and Moliere
only touched the skin. He carried fireand rage to the marrow."18
For theseremarkstake theirvalue fromthe well-knownresult,we mean the
vocation of the Apostle to the rank of the Phariseesand the triumph,universal,
of Pharisaicvirtues.Which,one will agree, leads to a more pertinentargument
than the rather paltry excuse with which Sade is content in his apology for
calumny:that the honest man will always triumphover it.
This platitudedoes not preventa somber beautyfromemanatingfromthis
monumentof defiance. This beauty bears witnessfor us to the experience for
whichwe search behind the fabulationof the fantasy.A tragicexperience,forit
projects its conditionin a lightingbeyond all fear and pity.
Bewildermentand shadows,such is, contraryto thejoke [motd'esprit],'9the
conjunctionwhose carbon brillance fascinatesus in these scenes.
This tragicis of the typewhichwillsharpenitsimage laterin the centuryin
17.
18.
19.

Cf. Vie deJ

Jsus, 17th edition, p. 339.
Ibid., p. 346.
One knows how Freud takes offfromthe "bewildermentand illumination"of Heymans.

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74

more than one work,eroticnovel or religiousdrama. We would call it the senile

tragic,of whichit was not knownbefore us, except in schoolboys'jokes, that it
was withina stone's-throwof the noble tragic. One should refer,to understand
us, to Claudel's trilogyof the Pere humili6.(To understandus, one should also
knowthatwe have shownin thisworkthe traitsof the mostauthentictragedy.It
is Melpomene who is age-ridden,withClio, withoutanyone seeing whichone will
bury the other.)
Thus we are in a position to interrogatethe Sade, monprochainwhose
invocationwe owe to the perspicacityof Pierre Klossowski.Extreme,it dispenses
him fromhaving to play the wit [des recoursdu bel esprit].20
Doubtless it is his discretionwhichleads him to shelterhis formulabehinda
referenceto Saint Labre. We do not findthisreason compellingenough to give
him the same shelter.
That the Sadian fantasysituates itselfbetter in the bearers of Christian
ethics than elsewhere is what our structurallandmarksallow us to grasp easily.
But that Sade, himself,refuses to be my neighbor, is what needs to be
recalled, not in order to refuseit to him in return,but in order to recognize the
meaning of this refusal.
We believe thatSade is not close enough to hisown wickednessto recognize
his neighbor in it. A traitwhich he shares withmany,and notablywith Freud.
For such is indeed the sole motiveof the recoil of beings,sometimesforewarned,
before the Christiancommandment.
For Sade, we see the test of this,crucial in our eyes, in his refusalof the
death penalty,which history,if not logic, would sufficeto show is one of the
corollariesof Charity.
Sade thus stopped, at the point where desire is knottedtogetherwith the
law. If somethingin him held to the law, in order there to findthe opportunity
Saint Paul speaks of, to be sinfulbeyond measure, who would throw the first
stone? But he went no further.
It is not onlythatforhim as forthe restof us the fleshis weak, it is thatthe
spiritis too promptnot to be lured. The apology forcrimeonlypushes himto the
indirectavowal of the Law. The supreme Being is restored in Maleficence.
Listen to him braggingof his technique,of immediatelyputtingeverything
whichoccurs to him into operation,thinkingmoreover,by replacingrepentance
with reiteration,to have done with the law within.He findsnothingbetterto
encourage us to followhim than the promisethatnature,woman thatshe is, will
magicallyalwaysyield to us more.
It would be a mistaketo trustthistypicaldream of potency.
It sufficiently
indicates,in any case, thatit would not be possibleforSade, as
This phrase was addressed to a futureacademician, himselfan expert in maliciousnesses,
20.
whom I have perceived to recognize himselfin the one which opens thisarticle.

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75

Kant withSade

is suggestedby P. Klossowskieven as he notes thathe does not believe it,to have

attained the sort of apathy which would be "to have reentered the bosom of
nature, in a wakingstate,in our world,"21inhabitedby language.
Of what Sade is lacking here, we have forbiddenourselves to say a word.
One may sense it in the gradation of the Philosopytoward the factthat it is the
curved needle, dear to Bufiuel'sheroes, whichis finallycalled upon to resolve a
girl'spenisneid,and quite a big one.
Be thatas it may,it appears thatthere is nothingto be gained by replacing
Diotima with Dolmance, someone whom the ordinarypath seems to frighten
more than is fitting,and who- did Sade see it?- closes the affairwitha Noli
tangerematrem.V . . . ed and sewn up, the mother remains forbidden. Our
verdictupon the submissionof Sade to the Law is confirmed.
Of a treatisetrulyabout desire, there is thus littlehere, even nothing.
What of it is announced in thiscrossingtakenfroman encounter,is at most
a tone of reason.
R. G. September 1962
TheeditorswouldliketothankJacques-AlainMillerfor thepermission
topublish
thistext.

21.

Cf. the footnoteon p. 94, Sade, monprochain.

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