LOVE IN CHILDREN BY THE SAME AUTHOR SOME APPLICATIONS OF PSYCHOANALYSIS " There can be nothing but praise for this work of Dr. Pfister. ... It is scrupulously scientific and intensely critical-clearly the work of a trained philosopher." -Spectator. " Will no doubt enlarge the horizon of many English readers who have been misled by some publications to suppose that psychoanalysis is a mere process of accumu- lation ot facts that are considered to be unpleasant."- New Age. "Dr. Pfister's reasoning is profound."-Westminster Gazette. "It is a clear, concise presentation of the elements." -Outlook. " Dr. Pfister has much that is interesting and reasonable."-Daily Herald. LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS A BOOK FOR PARENTS AND TEACHERS BY OSKAR PFISTER • I » PASTOR IN ZURICH TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY EDEN AND CEDAR PAUL LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD. RUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C. 1 NEW YORK: DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY First published in 11)24 {All rights reserved} Printed in Great Britain by UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, LONDON AND WOKING TO THE MEMORY OF MY MOTHER CONTENTS PAGE PREFACEij INTRODUCTION 17 THE PLAN 19 CHAPTER I. A SURVEY OF THE HISTORY OF THE PROBLEM OF LOVE 24 1. Akhenaton 25 2. Buddha 28 3. Confucius 28 4. Chuang Chou 29 5. The Jews 29 6. Plato 32 7. Aristotle 36 8. The Stoics 37 9. Sophocles 37 10. The Romans 37 11. Christianity 38 12. Paul 39 13. The First Epistle General of John ... 40 14. The Theologians of the Middle Ages ... 40 15. The Reformation 43 16. Pietism 43 17. Bacon 43 18. Descartes 44 19. Spinoza 44 20. Leibnitz 46 21. Locke 46 22. Kant 46 23. SCHLEIERMACHER 50 24. Herbart 54 25. Schopenhauer 55 26. Lotze 55 27. Hartmann 55 28. Teichmuller 59 29. Nietzsche 62 30. Scientific Psychology 70 31. Durr 73 32. Starring 74 33. Michelet 74 34. Duboc 74 35. The Other Sciences 75 7 8 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS CHAPTER PAGE II. THE GOAL OF THE INVESTIGATION .... 77 1. The Concept of Love 77 2. Close Contact with Life 78 3. Limitation to the Author's Personal Observa- tions 79 4. Theoretical and Practical Aim 79 HI. METHODS 81 1. Inadequacy of the Earlier Methods . . . 81 2. The Study of the Creative Unconscious . . 82 3. Freud's Discovery of Psychoanalysis ... 82 4. Theoretical and Practical Tasks of Psycho- analysis 84 5. Limitations of the Concept of Psychoanalysis . 88 6. Psychoanalysis is the Study of Unconscious Mentation 88 IV. THE SCOPE OF OUR STUDY 91 1. An Organic Outlook 91 2. What We Understand by Childhood ... 92 3. Direct and Indirect Observation of Love in Children 92 4. Limits of the Investigation 93 V. LOVE IN CHILDREN AS TREATED IN EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE 96 1. Primitive Folk 96 2. The Chinese 97 3. The Japanese 98 4. The Greeks 99 5. The Jews 100 6. Jesus 101 7. The Johannine and Pauline Literature . . 102 8. Augustine and other Fathers of the Church . 103 9. The Middle Ages 104 10. The Reformers 104 11. The Jesuits 105 12. Montaigne 105 13. Orthodox Protestantism 105 14. Comenius 105 15. Pietism 106 16. Locke 107 17. Rousseau 108 18. The Philanthropists 108 19. Pestalozzi 109 20. Palmer 112 21. Contemporary Pedagogy and the Study of Child Psychology 112 CONTENTS 9 PART ONE THE NORMAL AND ABNORMAL DEVELOPMENT OF LOVE IN CHILDREN A LIKES AND DISLIKES CHAPTER PAGE I. The Love of the Child for its Parents VI. LOVE AS THE CONTENT OF CONSCIOUSNESS. . .119 1. Love Predominant in the Conscious and in the Unconscious 121 2. Love Predominant in the Conscious and Hate Predominant in the Unconscious . . . .128 VII. PREDOMINANCE OF DISLIKE IN THE CONSCIOUS . 142 1. Dislike Both in the Conscious and in the Unconscious 142 2. Dislike Predominant in the Conscious and Love Predominant in the Unconscious .... 163 VIII. THE ASSOCIATION OF LOVE AND HATRED IN THE CONSCIOUS 174 1. The Oedipus Complex and the Electra Complex . 174 2. Alternations of Love and Hate .... 182 3. Conflicting Influences of Love and Hate (the Hamlet Attachment) 186 II. The Love of the Child for Other Persons than the Parents IX. LOVE FOR BROTHERS AND SISTERS . . . .193 1. Love Predominant 193 (a) Love both in the Conscious and in the Unconscious 193 (b) Love in the Conscious and Dislike in the Un- conscious 200 2. Dislike Predominant 201 (a) Dislike both in the Conscious and in the Un- conscious 201 (b) Love predominant in the Unconscious . . 207 X. LOVE FOR OTHERS'210 1. Parent-Substitutes 210 2. Brother-and-Sister-Substitutes 212 III. The Love of the Child for Persons and Things Outside the Home XI. LOVE OF ANIMALS, NATURE, LANDSCAPE, NATIVE LAND, AND INANIMATE OBJECTS 213 1. Like and Dislike for Animals 213 2. For Nature, Landscape, and Native Land . . 216 3. For Inanimate Objects 217 10 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS CHAPTER PAGE XII. LIKE AND DISLIKE FOR THE ACQUIREMENTS OF CIVILISATION AND FOR SOCIAL CONVENTIONS . 219 1. The Preparatory School of Play . . . .219 2. School 222 3. Reading 225 4. Art, its Appreciation and its Practice . . . 227 5. Vocation 231 6. Social, Ethical, and Political Standpoint . . 232 7- Cases 233 (a) Kleptomania due to repressed Hatred and repressed Love 233 (b) Kleptomania due to repressed and imperfectly mastered Masturbation 235 IV. The Love of the Child for Itself XIII. SELF-AFFIRMATION AND SELF-NEGATION . . .238 1. Self-Affirmation 238 (a) The Child's Love for its own Body (Narcissism) . 238 (b) The Child's Love for its own Mind . . . 242 2. Self-Negation and Self-Depreciation . . . 244 3. Dissociation for the Benefit of Self-Love . . 249 V. The Love of the Child for God and Divine Things XIV. A DISCUSSION OF CASES 254 1. Cases Previously Reported 254 2. Additional Cases 255 B MODIFICATIONS IN THE LOVE FUNCTION XV. BODILY ABNORMALITIES AS MANIFESTATIONS OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF LOVE IN CHILDREN . 263 XVI. INTELLECTUAL ABNORMALITIES 266 1. Sensations 266 2. Thoughts 267 3. Introverted Thinking 268 4. Excess or Deficiency of Intellectual Activity . 269 5. Vagaries of Thought 271 6. The Memory 272 XVII. ABNORMALITIES OF THE AFFECTIVE LIFE . . 273 1. Sensory Feelings 273 2. Inhibition of Feeling in Relation to Anxiety . 279 3. Sentimentality 287 4. Passivity 288 5. Moodiness 289 6. Delight in Suffering (Masochism) .... 290 7. Higher Feelings (Sublimation) 291 CONTENTS 11 CHAPTER PACE XVIII. ABNORMALITIES OF THE WILL 295 1. Sensory Impulses 295 2. Automatism as an Expression of the Unconscious Will 295 3. Lack of Will-Power 296 4. Fussy Activity 298 5. Delight in Inflicting Pain (Sadism). . . . 298 6. The Allotment of Energy to Higher Functions (Sublimation) „ 299 7. A Lapse into Lower Functions (Desublimation) . 303 8. Irresistible Impulses 304 PART TWO FORMATIVE FcRCES AND EXPERIENCES INTRODUCTORY 311 XIX. GENERAL ASPECTS OF THE FORMATIVE ACTIVITIES 313 1. Formative Influences where there is no Repression 313 2. The Moulding of Love in Children where Repression is at Work 313 (a) Repression 313 (t) Reactions of the repressed Material (the Mani- festations) 318 (c) Trends of the reacting Impulses .... 323 XX. INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTAL FACTORS . . .329 1. The General Significance of Heredity . . . 329 2. The Interrelations of the Impulses ; Their Classification 330 3. Particular Impulses 333 (a) The individuational Impulses .... 333 a- The Impulse to Self-Preservation . . 333 ft. The sexual Impulse 337 y. The social Impulse 341 (b) The acquisitive Impulse and the creative Impulse 345 XXL THE IMPORTANCE OF THE PARENTS AND OF OTHER PERSONS IN THE MOULDING OF LOVE IN THE CHILD 348 1. The Influence of the Parents 348 (a) Desire and Aversion, Assimilation and Disassimila- tion 348 (5) The Oedipus Complex 352 (c) The Hamlet Attachment 378 (d) The Breaking Away from the Parents . . .388 12 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS CHAPIBR PAGE 2. The Influence of Other Persons .... 392 (a) Influence of Brothers and Sisters. . . . 392 (b) Influence of other Persons ..... 396 XXII. THE INFLUENCE OF SPECIAL EXPERIENCES AND CYCLES OF EXPERIENCES 400 1. Preliminary Considerations 400 2. Corporal Punishment ..).... 401 3. Moral Torture 410 4. Frights 415 5. Pangs of Conscience 416 6. Sexual Influences 423 (a) General Considerations 423 (b) Careless Choice of Sleeping Quarters . . . 424 (c) The Threat of Castration 432 (d) Sexual Seductions and Assaults .... 434 (e) Inspectionism and Exhibitionism .... 436 (/) Masturbation 437 (?) Lack of Enlightenment or improper Enlighten- ment 440 PART THREE THE TRAINING OF LOVE IN CHILDREN AND THE TREATMENT OF LOVE'S DISORDERS PREAMBLE CONCERNING OUR TASK AND THE AIM OF EDUCATION 449 A THE TRAINING OF NORMAL LOVE IN CHILDREN XXIII. THE EDUCATION OF EDUCATORS 454 XXIV. TRAINING IN REASONABLE SELF-LOVE . . .460 1. Education and Over-Education 460 2. Self-Love and Selfishness 462 3. Effects of Disordered Self-Love .... 462 4. Control versus Repression of Selfish Impulses . 464 5. Management of the Newborn Infant . . . 464 6. Affective Training : The Play Way ; Tender- ness and Excess of Tenderness .... 465 7. Direct Instruction 467 8. Education of the Will 467 CONTENTS 13 CHAPTER PAGE XXV. TRAINING IN LOVE OF ONE'S NEIGHBOUR . . 470 1. Love Reciprocates Love 470 2. Good-Humour and Cheerfulness . . . >471 3. Seriousness and Strictness 472 4. Discipline and Freedom 473 5. Rewards and Punishments 476 6. Asceticism 479 7. Confidential Talks 480 8. Self-Education 481 9. Sexual Enlightenment 481 10. Coeducation 484 11. Education of the Social Sentiment. . . . 484 12. Religion and the Education of the Will . . 484 B THE TREATMENT OF ABNORMAL LOVE IN CHILDREN XXVI. DIAGNOSIS 486 1. Its General Importance 486 2. The Failure of Contemporary Pedagogy . . 488 3. The Making of the Diagnosis 491 4. Classification of the Abnormalities of Love in Children 493 XXVII. THE TREATMENT OF THOSE ABNORMALITIES IN WHICH THERE IS BUT LITTLE REPRESSION . . 494 1. Attention to Bodily Defects 494 2. Educational Measures Necessitated by a Defective Moral Inheritance 495 3. How to Overcome the Errors of Development THAT ARE MAINLY Due TO ENVIRONMENTAL Influences 497 XXVIII. THE TREATMENT OF ABNORMALITIES DUE TO REPRESSION 5o4 1. Suggestion 504 2. Psychoanalysis 510 (a) Its Fate as an Innovation 510 (b) What Psychoanalysis is not 512 (c) The Concept and the Aims of Psychoanalysis . 513 (d) Indispensability of Psychoanalysis for the Ortho- paedics of the Mind; its intellectual and emotional Character 518 (e) The Position of sexual Analysis within Psycho- analysis 522 14 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS CHAPTER FAGS (/) The educational Aim of the Psychoanalyst. (The Control of Impulses : Sublimation.). . . 527 (g) Method and Course of the analytical Orthopaedics of the Mind 530 (h) Peculiarities of Analysis in Children . . . 536 (t) Psychoanalysis in Conjunction with other educa- tional Methods 538 (A) Successes and Limitations 541 CONCLUSION 551 BIBLIOGRAPHY 557 INDEX 565 PREFACE For a dozen years, in my publications concerning analytical psychology and concerning the analytical method of influ- encing behaviour, I have addressed myself to expert circles -to psychologists, educationists, philosophers, theologians, lawyers, historians, and medical practitioners. Recently, however, I decided that, as far as in me lies, I would make the assured and fruitful results of the modern study of unconscious mentation, and of the importance of the uncon- scious in mental development, accessible to the general reader. I resolved to pen some works on these topics in as popular a vein as the subject permitted. I did not shut my eyes to the difficulties of the task. Which views are to be regarded as assured ? This primary question cannot be answered in a way that will give universal satisfaction. Furthermore, the data in the textbooks of psychology and educational science are not accepted by all experts as thoroughly established ; and what is taken as a fact to-day will very likely be discredited to-morrow. The individual investigator, therefore, must make the most of whatever his own careful examination leads him to regard as conclusively established. An additional difficulty arises for the reason that a popular demonstration of scientific discoveries is possible only within certain limits. Psychoanalytical research, which all those who are best qualified to speak describe as exceedingly difficult, forms no exception to this generali- sation. Many reservations are imposed. The cases must be reported in the briefest outline. The data that have been elucidated in sittings that have taken dozens or hundreds of hours, have to be recorded in a page or two of print, so that much of supreme interest to the expert has to be omitted. A holocaust must be made of the extraordi- narily rich ramifications that constitute the groundwork of 15 16 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS motives, for the details of a single analysis would fill a large volume. Moreover, very little can be reported to show the paths, now direct and now devious, by which the results of the investigation have been gradually brought into the light of day. Where theories are involved, their finer shades must be ignored. But this book does not aim at providing an introduction to the practice of psychoanalysis. It is intended to show the general relationships of the development of love, to explain how desirable ends can be attained, and how neces- sary changes can be effected. I wish to open my readers' eyes to the aching spiritual needs of childhood, which are largely misunderstood by contemporary educationists, and are therefore in many instances wrongly handled. My aim is to induce parents to conceive their educational tasks in a very different way from that demanded of them by the exponents of the traditional science of education. This applies, in especial, to abnormal pupils, to those whose education is exceptionally difficult, to those for whom the customary methods of training are useless. I wish to show that for them there have opened new possibilities of salva- tion, which have already proved a blessing to hundreds of children and young persons. In case of need, it will be essential to invoke the aid of a teacher who is thoroughly familiar with the psychoanalytical method, for the appli- cation of that method is dangerous in incompetent hands. In view of the before-mentioned difficulties, the writing of this work has been more arduous than the composition of most of my earlier books. I trust, however, that it will reflect the delight of giving help, and the hope of spreading truth without undue assertiveness. May my book on the development of love in children be successful, now and again, in promoting this development ! OSKAR PFISTER. Zurich, Autumn, 1921. INTRODUCTION 17 THE PLAN The needs of the day and the sufferings of innumerable persons with whom my professional work has brought me in contact have imposed on me the duty of writing this book. The war has degraded the world into an Aceldama and a Golgotha. Famine-stricken populations, ravaged by tuber- culosis, their nakedness hardly covered by rags, cower in dull despair. The conquerors, far from being animated with a triumphant spirit, realise that they have won a Pyrrhic victory. Vanquished and victors suffer under the same piti- less assize. Judgment has been passed upon a mammonistic savagery which flaunted its millions while reducing the soul to beggary in a dispute between gluttonous rivals; a savagery whose mouth was filled with lying arts while it bore devilish weapons in its hands. People held high festival at the masked ball of life without recking that pestilence was lurking at the door; they danced and wantoned in their frivolity when the poison of death was already circulating in their veins. To-day, even the most short-sighted must realise what those of keener vision had long foreseen, that we are in need of a comprehensive renovation of our life if we are to be freed from the curse of this savagery. Unmistakably manifest in the widest circles is the impulse towards a recon- struction of our spiritual world. From the lamentable reality, people seek refuge in either of two directions. Some believe that the desecrated temple of our social life must be razed to the ground in order that, in less than three days, a new fane may be gloriously built on the old site. The confidence with which those who hold this view (regardless of historical relationships) devote themselves to the work of destruction, the desperate resolution with which they stake the most terrible sacrifices of blood, and jettison 19 20 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS the freedoms that have been secured by centuries of struggle, cannot but remind us of the faith of the early Christians who offered up all material and political goods in the expectation of the speedy recoming of Christ. Others, who expect no help from outward improvements, look within for redemption. Sickened by the occurrences of the outer world, they close their eyes to its happenings and withdraw into the fortresses of their own souls. This absorption into the recesses of the personality is encountered in various domains of spiritual activity. We see it in re- ligious mysticism, which attempts to escape from the night of Buddhism, sometimes into grotesque philosophical systems and sometimes into fantastic and mythopeic constructions. We see it, again, in those artists who, breaking with the past in a spirit of fanaticism, likewise throw themselves into the arms of mysticism. For expressionism is nothing more than artistic mysticism.1 What is sound in this mystical outlook is not merely the recognition that man cannot live by matter alone, but also the realisation that outward misery is merely a reflection of inner discord-that the evil elemental power that presides over the miseries of the con- temporary world will destroy the noblest acquirements of a new order if its reign be permitted to continue. And yet mysticism, whatever form it may assume, cannot bring true enfranchisement. Just in so far as mysti- cism embraces spiritual forces, it withdraws the most valu- able influences from their place in social life. Thereby the evil world is left to its own rude devices-for evil cannot be shuffled out of the world by the ostrich trick of refusing to face it. Moreover, mysticism, as its history shows all too plainly, though it rarely leads to a true turning away from reality, almost invariably tends to induce a frame of mind in which the chained forces break out in disease or in unwholesome fantasies. Mysticism is masked egoism or hidden illness, however illustrious its devotees. What we need is a loftier, a more sublime inwardness, which will not shut itself away from the need of the world, but will vigorously overcome it. This self-discovery, that we may give ourselves more effectively, this energetic col- 1 Cf. Pfister, Der psychologische und biologische Untergrund des Expressionismus. INTRODUCTION 21 lection of our forces, from which an enlightenment of the world can alone proceed, can be achieved neither through revolution nor through mysticism. In the course of several decades of educational work, and through the continuous study of philosophy, the history of religion, and modern psychology, 1 have become convinced that nothing but the awakening of love can bring healing for the ills of our era. For why should we expect that the masses, whose sufferings are due to like causes, and whose symptoms are analogous, should be curable in any other way than individuals. My vocation and my specialist studies have brought hundreds of spiritually tormented persons under my notice. Among these have been many who were so desperate that they did not know which way to turn, many who in blind submission or fierce revolt longed for death. Among these were mockers and simpletons with bleeding hearts, and reactionaries who in the name of morality or religion gave rein to their most dangerous instincts and made life bitter for themselves and others. Behind the mask of misanthropy, was hidden an eager pursuit of self-degradation ; behind an impetuous and yet vacillating search for some good coming from without, was hidden the yearning for an inner satisfaction. There were many, too, who suffered intolerably from their love, or from their failure to love. But in all these innumerable cases, a careful examination revealed disturbances of the love function. They could not be cured, they could not be restored to happiness, except by setting free the love whose normal development was hindered. Now, let me insist at this early stage that love is not an isolated phenomenon. It occurs only in association with other tendencies of the human mind, such as intel- lectual interests, aesthetic needs, moral inclinations, etc. We are, however, fully entitled to bring love into relief as a unity. If our aim is to promote spiritual and moral health, much, though not everything, can be secured by bringing about the right development of love. This statement is just as true for the life of nations, for the life of society, as it is for the life of the individual. The fundamental precept of Christianity ranks as a biological law of primary importance. 22 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS I shall not allow myself to be intimidated by the mocking smile which this assertion will arouse on the lips of some of my readers. I do not need to be told how much scorn is felt for love unless it be in the sense of sexual passion. Some keen observers of human nature declare, indeed, that there is no such thing. Take, for instance, La Rochefoucauld's gibe : " Il en est du veritable amour comme de 1'apparition des esprits : Tout le monde en parle, mais peu de gens en ont vu " 1 Nietzsche does not go quite so far; but he, who is in many respects amazingly keen in his spiritual insight, maintains : " Woman is inclined to believe that love can do all things-this is her essential superstition. Alas, whoever knows the heart has discovered how poor, helpless, arrogant, out of tune, and disturbing rather than saving, even the best and profoundest love is." 3 In contradistinction to these views, Schopenhauer declares that love is the strongest and most active of all impulses, except the love of life.3 But he regards it as the persecutor and foe of the individual, always ready for the unsparing destruction of personal happiness ; he looks upon it as the tyrant of gods and men.4 His weaker intellectual kinsman, Eduard von Hartmann, expresses the following judgment : " Illusory pleasure, and predominance of pain, even in the most fortunate case ; as a rule, a paralysis of the will, attended by misery and despair, and by a failure to reach the goal; an annihilation of the future for so many women by the loss of their womanly honour which is their only social standing-ground-such are the consequences of love, which must determine our judgment of its value." 5 Nevertheless, the same philosopher realises that abstention from love may bring yet greater evils in its train, and he quotes with approval Anacreon's couplet (320) : It is an ill matter not to love, But it is ill, likewise, to love. 1 " It is with true love as with ghosts: Every one talks about it, but few have seen it." (Maximes, No. 76.) There was some justice in Schopenhauer's paraphrase that it is with passionate love as with ghosts, that all spoke of it but few had seen it. (Cf. Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, vol. ii, p. 624.) 1 Jenseits von Gut und Bose, No. 269. 3 Op. cit., ii. p. 626. 4 Ibid., p. 655. 5 Philosophie des Unbewussten, vol. ii, p. 320. INTRODUCTION 23 The other side of the case is presented by a number of distinguished writers, who do not merely regard love as an inexhaustible source of energy, but who look upon it further as of incomparable worth. In especial the poets, whom we must regard as the most authoritative spokesmen on this subject, outbid one another in exalting love. Goethe sings : Bright crown of life, Turbulent bliss,- Love, thou art this I Rastlose Liebe.1 For life is love, and genius Is life's diviner part Westostlicher Divan.1 Schiller expresses as follows his conviction of the beauty of love and of love's power to confer happiness : By love are blest the gods on high, Frail man becomes a deity When love to him is given ; 'Tis love that makes the heavens shine With hues more radiant, more divine, And turns dull earth to heaven ! Triumph der Liebe.3 In sharp contrast with those who have despised love, he exclaims : Divine, almighty love ! Thou art With justice called the queen of souls I To thee each element submissive yields ; The hostile combatants thou canst unite ; Whatever lives, thy sovereignty must own. Die Braut von Messina.* It would be easy to summon a vast array of witnesses from either camp. But we must not pin our faith to such testimony, for these opinions are the expression of individual moods, or of a projection of personal experiences upon the general life of mankind, rather than the outcome of scientific observation. 1 Restless Love, Edgar Alfred Bowring's translation. * West-Eastern Divan, Dowden's translation, p. 119. 3 The Triumph of Love, Bowring's translation. 4 The Bride of Messina, Lockwood's translation, p. 121. CHAPTER ONE A SURVEY OF THE HISTORY OF THE PROBLEM OF LOVE For the sake of clearness, we have first to enquire what we mean by love. The word is used in many senses. In the quotations just made, various conceptions of love find expression, and it would be a mistake to set them up against one another as though they were duelists. Some of these authors understand by love the relationship in which there is a lifelong fellowship between a man and a woman ; others have in mind something much wider than this. Let us enquire what the past has to say as to the nature of love, its developmental possibilities, its laws, effects, and signi- ficance. There are manifold forms of love. Besides sexual love between man and woman, there is the love of parents for children and that of children for parents, the love of friends, the love of country, the love of nature or of art, the love of sport, the love of God, etc. People will even tell you that they " love " sweets, malaga, Turkish baths, money, honour, power, truth, intrigue, and so forth. There is nothing which is not loved by somebody at one time or another. And just as the objects of love are innumerable, so, likewise, are the spiritual processes and the results of love infinitely diversified. Alarmed by this inextricable confusion, we turn to the founders of religion, the philosophers, and the psychologists, to ask them what love is, and how far we can rely on love to help us in our need. Thereupon we find ourselves in a new chaos ; and I fear that the reader, hungering for life and thirsting after knowledge, would soon lose interest if I were to expect him to seek a way through this labyrinth of opinions. But we have to deal with the facts of the case 24 HISTORY OF PROBLEM OF LOVE 25 As far as thoughts about love are concerned, I shall give no more than an outline, confining myself to the psychological and biological aspects. i. Akhenaton1 (1386-1359 B.c.). As far as I know, the earliest thinker to wrestle with the problem of love and to find his way to an impressive solution was Akhenaton, a vigorous prophet whose im- portance is still too little recognised. He was the first great poet in universal history, the first royal reformer of the arts and artistic town-builder, the first oriental ruler who lived a life of sublime conjugal ah ction and enjoyed all the most cordial intimacies of family existence, the first exponent of a love of one's neighbour that was to embrace persons of the most diverse nations and races, the first pacifist, and, above all, the first founder of a monotheistic religion.3 His whole life was devoted to the divine service of love. When eleven years old he became Pharaoh of Egypt, a kingdom which then extended from Nubia to the Euphrates ; and he died at the age of twenty-seven. His love was given to inanimate nature and to the lower animals as well as to mankind. He was the first among Egyptian kings to place himself in the same rank with his fellow mortals, whereas all his predecessors on the throne had claimed divine honours. He gave love to his wife, to whom he cleaved despite the protests of the whole people-although she bore him daughters only. He loved the Syrians and the Nubians equally with persons of pure Egyptian stock, seeing that all peoples were assigned their special place by God. Above all, his love was given to Aton, the one god of love, who is symbolised by the sun. In the hymn to Aton, this universal love finds splendid expression. I quote a few stanzas : Thy sheen is already at the margin of the skies, Thou living Aton, thou first of living things ! When thou arisest at the eastern margin of the skies, Thou fillest every land with thy beauty. 1 More commonly known as Amenhotep or Amenophis IV. Amenhotep means " Ammon is satisfied." Thrusting aside the worship of Ammon, Amenhotep adopted the name of Akhenaton, signifying " consecrated to Atom"-Translators' Note. * Cf. Pfister, Echnaton, " Wissen und Leben," issues of April 15th and May 1st, 1914.-[Echnaton is th« author's transliteration of Akhenaton.] 26 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS For thou are beautiful, great, and sparkling ; thou art high above the earth ; Thy rays embrace the lands, embrace everything which thou hast made. Thou art the Sun-God, and thou hast them all in thy power. Thou bindest them to thee by thy love. When thou sinkest below the western margin of the skies, The world lies in darkness, as if it were dead . . . But the darkness is dispelled when thou sendest forth thy rays. Awaking, and rising to their feet, For thou hast upraised them, People perform their ablutions and don their clothes. They raise their hands in prayer when thou appearest, And all do their work . . . The birds fly across the marshes, And their wings are raised in worship of thee. . i The chick chirps already in the shell, For thou givest it the breath of life. When thou hast perfected its making, So that it can break through the shell, It comes forth from the egg, To chirp as much as it can ; It runs hither and thither When it comes forth from the egg. V How manifold are thy works : They are hidden from us ! Thou art the one God, whose power is unequalled, Thou fashionedst the earth according to thy will When thou alone didst exist. . . . The lands of Syria and Nubia And the land of Egypt. Thou givest to all their appointed places And furnishest them with whatever they need. Each one has his own possessions, And their days are numbered, They speak divers languages, And they differ, too, in form and colour. Yes, thou makest differences among mankind How glorious are thy plans, thou Lord of eternity I Thou art in my heart. There is no other who knows thee Except thy son Akhenaton. Thou hast initiated him into thy plans And into thy power. HISTORY OF PROBLEM OF LOVE 27 When thou risest, men live ; When thou settest, they die. For thou art thyself the spirit of life, And we live only through thee. The spirituality of this love, its delicacy and purity, has never been excelled. It is a love which leads to the worship of God in beauty and ecstatic absorption, and finds expression in a love of mankind which is free from the lust of power and possessions and knows only works of peace and goodness. Even to-day we are still far from the altitudes whence the youthful Pharaoh, with reverential admira- tion, contemplated the peculiarities of the various nations as the gifts of eternal love. To a mind directed towards so noble and sacred an ideal, war seemed a madness and an impossibility. Akhenaton would rather have seen his dominion crumble than he would have tried to consolidate it with the power of the sword. Thereby he imperilled his throne, and it was the tragedy of his incomparable love that all his noble thoughts should have served merely to evoke deeds of violence and destruction. Well was it for the bold idealist that he died at the early age of twenty-seven. The tragedy of this seer, the most ardent and profound enunciator of the universal power of love (in this respect, not excelled even by the prophets of Israel or by Jesus), is to be found in the exclusively artistic character of his love. His piety could not get beyond splendid verbiage, devoid of social reactions, unable to work vigorously for the satisfac- tion of life's real needs. Decked with flowers, this piety celebrates the ego in lovely and gentle but ineffective lays, wrapping itself in he entrancing splendours of fancy. What is lacking to it is social fervour, the passion which leads to a self-denial that does not hesitate to grapple with foul and mean things ; there is lacking a veneration for the dignity of the ethical, which we must venerate even when it wanders through the world in the sordid vesture of poverty and wretchedness. Nevertheless I must insist that Akhenaton had a deep and prophetic understanding of the omnipotence of love, which was to him a matter of direct and overwhelming experience, though he could not give expression to his ideas in scientifically phrased precepts. This experience brought 28 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS him ineffable ecstasy, but brought him likewise terrible hours in Gethsemane. Like so much of the highest, he fell a sacrifice to the resistance of the base. 2. Buddha (fifth century b.c.). Buddha was the next among great thinkers to whom love was a psychological problem. He regarded love as an expression of the will-to-live, and as therefore a bringer of sorrow. Release could only be achieved by the sacrifice of love, together with the sacrifice of all thought, feeling, and will. Nevertheless there remained compassion for another's sorrow-and we are surely entitled to say that this last tie, which persists as a link between the strict Buddhist and his environment, is his only safeguard against lunacy. Lacking this tie, the great moral teacher will sink irrecoverably into the abysses of his own soul. But compassion drives him forth to preach to mankind ; amid privations, to spend part of the year in missionary wanderings, and in attempts to soften the lot of those who suffer and who need help. Yet these vestiges of love are merely a means for furthering the destruction of the whole life of the mind. " Buddhism finds no words for the poetry of Christian love, for the love that finds expression in the saying of Paul that love is greater than faith and hope." 1 Nor do we find in Buddhist teaching a word as to loving our enemies ; we are merely forbidden to hate. In the psychology of Buddhism, too, there is no place for love. 3 3. Confucius (551-478 b.c.). The Chinese sages came nearer to penetrating the enigma of love. But to them filial piety seemed the greatest of all the virtues ; and since this implies, not a free relation- ship but one of subserviency, it was impossible that in Chinese philosophy love could take its place as life's domi- nant. We shall have to consider this matter briefly when describing love in children. Here it is enough to say that the Confucian teaching marks a definite advance upon the Buddhistic. When Confucius, the focus of Chinese wisdom, was asked to expound the essence of morality, his answer 1 Oldenberg, Buddha, 6th edition, p. 335. » Lehmann, Der Buddhismus, p. 137. HISTORY OF PROBLEM OF LOVE 29 was the one word " philanthropy." 1 He gives as the supreme rule of conduct : " Do not unto another what you would not have another do unto you." 2 But Confucius, differing in this respect from his profounder but less prac- tical contemporary Lao-Tse, does not get beyond the law of retaliation.3 Notable is the admission that love is greater then religious ceremonial: "A man who does not love his fellows, of what avail to him are forms ? A man who does not love his fellows, of what avail to him is music ? " 4 4. Chuang Chou (Fourth Century b.c.). Of all the Chinese thinkers, the Taoist Chuang Chou was mdst explicit in insisting upon the superiority of love to piety. I select a few passages from a dialogue between him and a chancellor of state.5 The chancellor was enquiring about love. Chuang Chou said : " Tigers and wolves have love." The chancellor : " What does that mean ? " Chuang Chou : " The old and the young are mutually dependent, and we must describe this as love." The chancellor : " Can you tell me what the highest love is ? " Chuang Chou : " The highest love knows no depen- dency. . . . The highest love is supremely lofty. The idea of filial veneration does not suffice to denote it. It is not my meaning that filial veneration goes too far, but that it does not go far enough. Filial veneration as the outcome of respect is easy ; filial affection as the outcome of love is difficult." But Chuang Chou's mysticism prevented him from doing full justice to joyfully creative love. For him, one who has affections, and one who creates in love for his fellows, is still a long way from the ideal.6 5. The Jews. In the evolution of the concept of love, at least in that of the experience and the valuation of love, the history of Israel marks an enormous progress. It is, perhaps, open to argument whether Jehovah, the god of Moses, is to be 1 Wilhelm, Gesprache des Kungfutse [Confucius], 1914, p. 131. ' Ibid., p. 176. 3 Ibid., p. 163. 4 Ibid., p. 19. 5 Wilhelm, Dschuang Dsi [Chuang Chou], das wahre Buch vom sudlichen Bliitenland, pp. 105 et seq. 6 Ibid., p. 47. 30 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS regarded as a god of love ; though Kautzsch asserts this, assuming that it was the pitifulness of God which made him adopt the Jews as the chosen people.1 But it is cer- tainly impossible to overlook that the vigorous Jewish impulse towards social and moral advance was an especial characteristic of the worship of Jehovah.3 Still, bellicose and harsh traits are no less conspicuous in Jehovah.3 Among the Jews, especially after their fusion with the Canaanites, worship assumed orgiastic forms. In the main centres of social life, there were savage rites, and the not infrequent indications of human sacrifices show that indi- vidual piety often took a sadistic form. The exuberant and riotous youth of the nation was succeeded by a calmer maturity, the period of the prophets. It was their work to divert the vital impetus from its primi- tive manifestations into social and moral channels. Upon a background reddened by fire and blackened by smoke, a background of political instability, the prophetic writings were admonitions to the Jews of the Captivity, were urgings towards conversion and repentance, which built a pathway towards moral altitudes. The fierce invocations of the prophets already breathe unmistakably the spirit of the love of man and the love of God. Amos, the vigorous herd- man of Tekoa, hurls thunderous words, as the raging Poly- phemus hurled rocks at Odysseus and his companions, but with a better aim than that of the cyclops. Hosea (xi. i) refers to the divine love shown " when Israel was a child " ; the love which took Ephraim by the arms, which " drew them . . with bands of love " (xi. 3, 4) ; the love which " desired mercy, and not sacrifice " (vi. 6). Isaiah compares his god to a friend who has fenced his people like a vineyard planted with the choicest vines, caring for this vineyard tenderly- until the vineyard brought forth wild grapes, and fierce judgments were called for (v.). But in the end, the divine peace would gain the victory (ii. 4), and justice would sit upon the throne of Jehovah. More gently and caressingly than the fierce Jeremiah (see Jeremiah chapters xxix. to xxxiii.) did Ezekiel and the second Isaiah sing the divine 1 Kautzsch, Biblische Theologie des alten Testaments, p. 64. * Marti, Geschichte der israelitischen Religion, p. 76. 1 Of. Wellhausen, Die Israelitisch-Jiidische Religion. Kultur der Gegen- wart, Part I, § 4, first half p. 9. HISTORY OF PROBLEM OF LOVE 31 love ; and we find the same note in many of the stories of patriarchal days. After the exile, in Israel's old age, when official piety had lost the sense of love and had entered the path of ob- sessional neurosis (enslaved by orthodoxy and ceremonial), the spirit of social morality continued to flourish. We find this spirit, above all, in such gentle and refined individu- alities as that of the writer of the Book of Jonah 1 and that of Ruth. Many of the Psalms, too, are permeated with this loving spirit. An analysis of their language likewise shows the Jews' mental attitude towards love.3 The verb " ahab " denotes love first of all as a pure feeling, as the love of things, a fondness for certain actions, a liking, an inner inclination; but it also signifies an ardent passion. The same word denotes a mere frame of mind, which passively surrenders itself to feeling, a spirit of service which is ready for supreme sacrifices, and even for the sacrifice of life itself. The word also means to desire.3 Thus this concept of loving extends to inanimate objects, individual human beings, humanity- at-large, and finally to God. The word " chesed " conveys the sense of grace and kindness ; the word " racham," which literally means bowels, has the figurative signification of sympathy or com- passion. Much might be said anent the connexion between the love, grace, justice, and truth, of God, but this would lead us into a theoretical discussion of the concept of love and its psychological utility. With the intuition of genius, the Hebrew prophets were able to solve, in great measure, the problem of love, although of course their solution was not formulated in scientific terminology. Their successors, who were bowed and broken by the bludgeonings of national disaster, and belonged to the old age of the people-the 1 I cannot help thinking that this splendid little book must really be a fairy tale-a tale for children. Especially is this idea suggested by the injunction that man and beast should be covered with sackcloth, and by the account of the angry Jonah, who, when the gourd had withered, would rather die in the heat of the sun than take a few steps to secure protection in the shade of his booth. Here we have the true fairy-tale touch. Kautzsch and other authorities, who would like to reject the booth as a gloss, have missed the admirable psychology of the tale. 1 Abel, Ueber den Begriff der Liebe in einigen alten und neuen Sprachen, pp. 19-26. 3 Gesenius, Hebraisches und aramaisches Handworterbuch. 32 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS priests and scribes from Ezra onwards-were afflicted with the obsessional neurosis from which Jesus delivered the Jews by raising Lazarus from the dead through the power of love. 6. Plato (429-347 b.c.). In the western world, the first philosopher to discuss love was Plato, whose treatment of the topic is most pro- found and illuminating. For him, Eros is in the first place the sexual impulse or the reproductive impulse.1 He is far from despising the activity of this impulse, for he tells us that procreation, which is the union of man and woman, " is a divine thing." 3 But love reaches a yet more lofty level. It aspires to and attains the beautiful, noble, and gifted soul within the body,3 so that conception becomes a spiritual act. Through this spiritualisation, Plato discovers a reason (or a pretext) for declaring even paedophilia (which, indeed, he prizes more highly than the love of women) to be ethical. A still greater exaltation of the originally sexual love impulse is to be found, he considers, in the philosophic impulse, in which Eros tends towards the abstract, the ideal world. Ultimately, love is uplifted to the throne of the godhead. As Nachmansohn says : " For Plato, Eros and love are identical, whether it be parental or filial love, the love of a man for a woman, the love of art and science, or the love of God." 4 It is upon this gradation that the Greek sage bases his distinction between sacred and profane love. But the foregoing valuable citations are by no means exhaustive as a demonstration of the kinship between Plato's thought and psychoanalysis. I append a number of the reflections of the great Greek philosopher, in order to show his marvellous psychological insight. 1 Nachmansohn, Freud's Libidotheorie verglichen mit der Eroslehre Platos, " Internationale Zeitschrift fur Srztliche Psychoanalyse," iii, p. 76. » Symposium. Cf. Jowett, The Dialogues of Plato, translated into English, second edition, vol. ii, p. 57. (The subsequent references in the text are to the pages in this edition, from which the English version of Plato's text is quoted.) 3 Nachmansohn, op. cit., p. 78. ♦ Nachmansohn adds : " It is interesting to note that all the expansions of the conventional notion of the sexual impulse which, as the discoveries of Freud, are so repulsive to the academically minded, are in fact to be met with in the writings of the founder of the Academy (Plato). HISTORY OF PROBLEM OF LOVE 33 It seems like an anticipation of the most modern of psychotherapeutical outlooks, a foreshadowing of Freudian psychoanalysis, when he writes : "For there are in the human body two loves, which are confessedly different and unlike, and being unlike, have loves and desires which are unlike ; and the desire of the healthy is one, and the desire of the diseased is another ; ... for medicine may be regarded generally as the knowledge of the loves and desires of the body '' 1 (p. 37). This idea is expanded as follows : " The good physician is he who is able to separate fair love from foul, or to convert one into the other ; and he who knows how to eradicate and how to implant love, whichever is required, and can reconcile the most hostile elements in the constitution and make them friends, is a skilful practitioner " (p. 38). " Of all the gods he [Eros] is the best friend of men, the helper and the healer of the ills which are the great obstruction to the happiness of the race '' (p. 40). Almost all technical, artistic, and social activities are said to spring from love. Plato enumerates some of these activities as follows ; gymnastic, husbandry, music, courage, poetry, archery, metallurgy, weaving, the art of govern- ment, the love of the beautiful and the good. Some of these references deserve direct quotation. First may come the opinion on music, and its assimilation to the healing art : " Which accordance, as in the former instance, medicine, so in this, music implants, making love and unison to grow up among them ; and thus music, too, is concerned with the principles of love in their application to harmony and rhythm" (p. 38). If here Plato, with keen insight, discerns in music the power of love, he shows himself to be a master of the psy- chology of morals and religion in the following passage, whose full significance has hitherto been overlooked only because, since Plato, no one has with penetrating gaze devoted himself to the study of the interrelationships of the psychical processes in their entirety : " Furthermore all sacrifices and the whole province of divination, which is the art of communion between gods and men-these, I say, are concerned only with the preservation of the good and the cuts of the evil love. For all impiety is likely to ensue if, instead 1 imcmfar) raw tov acbpiaTog eporiKajv. 34 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS of accepting and honouring and reverencing the harmonious love in all his actions, a man honours the other love, whether in his feelings towards gods or parents, towards the living or the dead. Wherefore the business of divination is to see to these loves and to heal them, and divination is the peace- maker of gods and men, working by a knowledge of the religious or irreligious tendencies which exist in human loves " (p. 39). According to this, religion, too, is only con- cerned with a true knowledge and guidance of the tendencies of the amatory life. The amazing thing is that at this early date, manifestly through the initiative of Socrates, we find a mention of the unconscious as the organ of piety. Of course the notion is not expressed with the clarity of modern concepts. But consider the following passage : Love "is a great spirit (Sai/xa»v), and like all spirits he is intermediate between the divine and the mortal. . . . He interprets . between gods and men, conveying to the gods the prayers and sacri- fices of men, and to men the commands and replies of the gods. He is the mediator who spans the chasm which divides them, and in him all is bound together, and through him the arts of the prophet and the priest, their sacrifices and mysteries and charms, and all prophecy and incantation, find their way. For God mingles not with man ; but through love all the intercourse and speech of God with man, whether awake or asleep, is carried on. The wisdom which under- stands this is spiritual. . . . Now these spirits or inter- mediate powers are many and diverse, and one of them is love" (p. 54). Plato also tells us that philosophy springs from love : " For wisdom is a most beautiful thing, and love is of the beautiful " 1 (p. 55). Again : " For you may say generally that all desire of good and happiness is only the great and subtle power of love " (p. 56). Since love is the desire that good be for ever present to us, of necessity love must also be the desire of immortality (p. 58). Those whose love is merely sensual " betake themselves to women and beget children " (p. 59). Whereas, creative souls long for spiritual 1 Shelley's translation brings out better than Jowett's the idea conveyed by Schleiermacher's translation-the one quoted by Pfister; " Love is that which thirsts for the beautiful."-Translators' Note. HISTORY OF PROBLEM OF LOVE 35 children, long to bring forth wisdom, poetry, and works of art. " But the greatest and fairest sort of wisdom by far is that which is concerned with the ordering of states and families, and which is called temperance and justice " (p. 60).1 Plato here puts into the mouth of Socrates, who is professedly recording the wisdom of his instructress Diotima, an admirable description of what Freud terms sublimation. The whole dialogue is a mighty song of praise to love, not couched in terms of sentimental enthusiasm, but guided at every step by a psychological insight that transcends the millenniums. The praise of love is summed up in the fol- lowing exalted passage : "He fills men with affection and takes away their disaffection, making them meet together at such banquets as these. In sacrifices, feasts, dances, he is our lord-supplying kindness and banishing unkindness, giving friendship and forgiving enmity, the joy of the good, the wonder of the wise, the amazement of the gods ; desired by those who have no part in him, and precious to those who have the better part in him ; parent of delicacy, luxury, desire, fondness, softness, grace ; regardful of the good, regardless of the evil. In every word, work, wish, fear- pilot, comrade, helper, saviour ; glory of gods and men, leader best and brightest ; in whose footsteps let every man follow, sweetly singing in his honour that sweet strain with which love charms the souls of gods and men '' (p. 48). Another peculiarity of the Platonic concept of love must be mentioned-its redeeming tendency. Whereas so many subsequent writers (Aristotle not excepted) have looked upon love as a source of egoistic happiness, pleasure of a higher grade, Plato discerns also in love the will towards the freeing of prisoners, the healing of the sick, the uplifting of the fallen.2 But this redeeming love must not be con- fused with the Christian conception.3 Plato has no interest in the individual. " That is why he approves of infanticide on political and pedagogical grounds, in order to promote the breeding of the best race of citizens and to avert over- 1 The metaphysical notion in accordance with which " love is to be found in all animals and plants, and I may say in all that is " (p. 37), need not detain us. ' Teichmiller, Neue Studien zur Geschichte der Begriffe, vol. iii, p. 374. » Op. cit., p. 383. 36 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS population ; that is why he is so zealous a Darwinian in the matter of sexual selection, and proposed the institution of stud-farms, not for the rearing of horses, but for the rearing of human beings." 1-All the same, his recommenda- tions imply that the barriers of egoism have been broken down. In these disquisitions, we have especially to note the breadth and depth of the writer's insight, which conceives of love as the fundamental energy of the psyche, as the creative principle ; which traces the influence of love through all possible mental processes, passing even beyond experience into the realm of metaphysics. We need not follow him into this region, which Plato himself only describes in mythological images ; but it is well to point out that even so cautious a positivist as Freud is able to draw therefrom intimations of permanent value.3 Nay more, the beginnings of an evolutionary outlook are to be found in Plato. He actually anticipates the theory of sublimation. No one with a historic sense will complain because the evolutionary method of regarding love is not consistently applied (this, perhaps, being the reason why homosexuality is not recognised to be an aberration of development). Just as little are we entitled to carp at Plato for not having discovered certain associations between the phenomena he was studying, and for not having dis- covered psychological laws. In any case, his writings on love entitle him to be regarded as a seer. As far as I have been able to ascertain, the post- Platonic era in philosophy had little light to throw on love.3 y. Aristotle (384-322 b.c.). Aristotle recognises three fundamental forms of love. We love those who are useful to us ; we love those who give us pleasures, our comrades, and perhaps humanity-at- large ; finally, we love that which is perfect, regarding it as the only thing really worth loving. We love every good and Teichmuller, Neue Studien zur Geschichte der Begriffe, vol. iii, p. 383. 1 Freud, Jenseits des Lustprinzips, p. 55. 3 It would certainly be a good thing if the historians of ethics were to give careful consideration to the attitude towards love adopted by noted ethical teachers. HISTORY OF PROBLEM OF LOVE 37 just man because the beautiful is shown forth in his works. Self-love (</>iAavTia) is permissible, unless it seeks realisation at others' cost and is directed towards illusory goods. Aris- totle tells us nothing of psychological import concerning love.1 8. The Stoics. According to the Stoics, love is a powerful impulse aim- ing at the advantage of friends, and manifesting itself through beauty (" Etvai 8e top epcura eTTifloXrjv cfaXoTroiov 81a KaXXos €p.(})(llVOp,€VOV ").' 9. Sophocles (495-405 b.c.). In Greek mythology, too, we find valuable glimpses into the nature of love. For instance, there is the distinction between the Uranian and the Pandemian Eros, sacred and profane love. But the greatest Greek utterance on this subject is that of Sophocles, who wrote in Antigone : "I am disposed, not to hate with others, but to love with them." In its sublimity, this utterance almost transcends the teaching of the Gospels. io. The Romans The Latin language shows how much the Romans' thoughts were concerned with love. A distinction is drawn between voluntary and dutiful inclination, as differently tinged feelings.3 Dutiful love is the outcome of rational considerations (diligere) ; voluntary love proceeds rather from an inward impulse, welling up from mysterious depths (amare). Duti- ful affection is either a sentiment that is purely human in its bearing (caritas), or it is one which concerns our obliga- tions towards the gods (pietas). All these four significations are embraced within the meaning of the word " affectus which signifies a lively inclination. Other terms, denoting various shades of meaning, lie beyond the scope of the present argument. 1 Teichmuller, Neue Studien zur Geschichte der Begriffe, vol. iii, PP- 358-362. 3 Eisler, Worterbuch der philosophischen Begriffe, vol. ii, p. 598. s Abel, op. cit., pp. 7-14. 38 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS 11. Christianity. By the Christians, love has been mainly treated as a moral and religious concept. To Jesus, love was a divinely ordained self-sacrifice, that was none the less a free self- sacrifice for the purpose of service and help. Towards God, love takes the form of faith in his goodness, which will give all that we need, and in his grace, which will forgive us our sins ; towards our neighbours, love takes the form of joyful and unselfish activity which has forbearance for others' weaknesses, and of magnanimity and humility. Love no longer seeks self-gratification, but implies self-sacrifice even to the wretched, to the morally debased. It is an impulse of the will, rather than a feeling. The aesthete's or the mystic's pious but passively self-indulgent pursuit of pleasure, on the one hand, and the joyless commands and prohibitions of the Old Testament on the other, are equally remote from Jesus' thought. The whole compass of man's duties and highest goods is comprised within the precept : " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind ; and thy neighbour as thyself " (Luke x. 27 ; also Matthew xxii. 37-40, and Mark xii. 29-31). It is quite wrong to believe, as so many believe, that the latter half of this precept sums up the whole moral demand of Christianity, or is at any rate the fundamental ethical rule. From it alone we cannot deduce the heroic self-sacrifice which has obviously to be inferred from the symbol of the cross and from some of the sayings of Jesus. But this supreme imperative is deducible from the recommendation of absolute self-surrender to God as the essence of desirable effort. What is requisite is that we should aspire towards the attainment of something more than an agreeable individual life ; that we should aspire towards a supreme interest, an ideal aim, and that this aim should concern the general welfare of mankind, even at the cost of our own individual life. Exception has been taken to the imperative form of the commandment, the critics saying that it is absurd to command love. But it must not be forgotten that the imperative (which should not be assimilated to the impera- tives of the Mosaic law) embodies much educational and HISTORY OF PROBLEM OF LOVE 39 psychological wisdom. We are forbidden to indulge in the sort of love that regards our neighbour as a mere means to our own gratification ; but at the same time the precept puts out of court the fantastic altruism that would have us squander our life for the sake of our neighbour. We shall see later how revolutionary in its effect upon the individual and upon civilisation will be the solution of the problem of love, a solution which to many may appear self-evident, but which is in reality a unique product of genius. For the nonce, let us be content to recognise that Christianity has made of love the one thing needful, has proclaimed love to be the real meaning and the true purpose of life. But in Christian teaching this love is neither an extravagant love like that demanded by the Jewish religion in the days before the prophets, nor is it an artistic and mystically self-indulgent love. It is a transfiguration of love which releases our highest moral energies. In its religious aspect, it manifests itself predominantly as joy, salvation, liberty, peace, and hope. In its moral aspect, it manifests itself as an urge to self-sacrificing brotherly love and to social helpfulness. 12. Paul. The New Testament writers gave no fresh contribution to the solution of the problem of love. Paul, who tells us that love is greater than faith and hope (1 Cor. xiii. 13), knows that the fleshly nature, or, as we may phrase it, sensuality, is the primary cause of numerous moral trans- gressions.1 He looks askance at marriage : " It is good for a man not to touch a woman. . . . The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband. ... It is better to marry than to burn " (1 Cor. vii. 1, 4, 9). This is the psychology and morality of the Jewish ascetic, and of the sick man who has been afflicted by the angel of Satan. It was a miracle that his genius and his profundity of mind were not even more gravely impaired. Through his faith in Christ he is saved from the bonds of the lower impulses and attains to a heroic and fervent love, but the psychological bearings of love are hidden from him. It seems to him that 1 Cf. Pfister, Die Entwicklung des Apostels Paulus, " Imago," sixth year of issue, pp. 271 et seq. 40 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS the possibilities of a new and blessed life are to be found only in supernatural processes, with the exclusion of all natural psychical relationships. He describes the love of our neighbour in wonderful phrases (1 Cor. xiii.). On the other hand, the writer of the first epistle general of John has the profoundest psychological insight into the nature of love, and recognises its intercessory power with scientific acuteness. Consider, for instance, the following passage : " God is love ; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judg- ment : because as he is so are we in this world. There is no fear in love ; but perfect love casteth out fear : because fear has torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love" (1 John iv. 16-18). Eighteen hundred years were to elapse before it was generally recognised how much psycho- logical and biological truth there is in this assertion of the connexion between love inhibitions and anxiety. 13. The First Epistle General of John 14. The Theologians of the Middle Ages. Ere long, Christian thinkers came to give their main attention to the formulation of theological precepts and to ecclesiastical phrase-making. We shall see later that it is the repression of love that brings about such a transference of the vital impetus into the sphere of intellectuality-a transference whereby an understanding of the psychology and the significance of love is rendered extremely difficult. It was strange ! These writers believed themselves to be the advocates and custodians of infinite love, but ignored the gradual emptying of the treasuries under their care. The pure flame of divine and human love lighted by Jesus was surrounded ever more abundantly with flashy, orna- mental lights ; and those who did this failed to notice that they were making it almost impossible for the rays of the central flame to find their way into the outer world. The medieval theologians can hardly be said to have increased our knowledge of love. They all recognised the distinction known to classical thinkers between sacred and profane love. HISTORY OF PROBLEM OF LOVE 41 Augustine (354-430), who cannot really be classed among the medieval theologians, has an inkling that sensual love includes within itself a yearning for a deeper and better love (Confessions, ii. 1). But for him every love which is not consciously permeated by the love of God is dangerous or suspect. " Blessed is he who loves thee [God], and his neighbour in thee, and his neighbour for thy sake " (iv. 9). Augustine falls far short of Plato in fine psychological insight into our problem ; his psychology, with its four varieties of affects, has no place for love (x. 14). Nevertheless, after his conversion, he is inspired with an ardent love of God, and certainly with the most cordial feelings for his mother, his friends, and his neighbours. But because, after his bitter disillusionments, he has turned away in disgust from ele- mentary eroticism, the loftier implications are hidden from him. The scholastic philosophers have little to tell us concerning love. The first of them, Johannes Scotus Erigena 1 (c. 800- c. 877) defines love as follows : " Love is the relationship or the tie by which the totality of all things is held together in ineffable friendship and indissoluble unity." This proposi- tion belongs to the domain of ontology, the philosophy of pure being. If we are in search of the relationships of the love life, it avails us nothing. Thomas Aquinas (c. 1226-74) defines love as " something which pertains to endeavour." Thus among the medieval scholastics we already find that expansion of the concept which is still the source of so much confusion to-day. He discerns the salient point more clearly when he says : " Love is the inclination of a thing towards anything, the delight in anything worthy of endeavour or towards anything good." 2 There can be no doubt that the scholastics were much richer in love than their writings might lead us to suspect. But their scientific system definitely aims at the effacement of love and at monopolisation with pure thought. From them, therefore, we get nothing that can promote our under- standing of love. This history of medieval theology is the 1 He is not always classed among the scholastics. Cf., for instance, Loofs, Leitfaden zum Studium der Dogmengeschichte, second edition, p. 250. ' Eisler, op. cit., p. 599. 42 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS via dolorosa of Christian love. Theology was in a bellicose, one might even say a swashbuckling mood ; the theologians laid about them fiercely with the sharp weapons of logical hair-splitting, and dominated Christian thought; love still sat on the official throne, but, like the Japanese emperors in the days of the shoguns, had no real power. The mystics were an exception to this generalisation, but they, likewise, left the heights of the spiritual love of Jesus to wander amid unwholesome swamps and barren heaths. Common to all the mystics is a turning away from the world. (The word " mystic " is derived from the Greek p,v€cv, to shut the eyes.) In some of the mystics, Eckhart, for instance (1260-1329), the love impulse, imprisoned in the recesses of the ego, takes its revenge in the form of an arid philosophy, of a pantheistic immersion in impersonal being. In others, as a result of a similar repression, we find a sensual piety, which is apt to be almost obscene in its manifestations, for the sexual needs find expression in loath- some orgies of feeling and fantasy.1 But when the world is merely rejected as the totality of cultural goods and insti- tutions, there may still persist an intimate relationship of feeling and will with reality. Elizabeth of Hungary (1207- 1231) devoted herself with the utmost self-sacrifice to the care of lepers; Francis of Assisi (1182-1226) served the needy, and loved animals, plants, and stars with the fervour of a child and a poet. In his case, as far as we know, piety was untinged with sexuality. But Elizabeth of Hungary, after she withdrew from the world, subjected herself to the most cruel bodily chastisements. Everyone who is acquainted with phenomena of the kind will recognise in her case the insistent manifestations of sexual desires, taking the form known to sexologists as masochism. (See chapter xvii.) When the whole of reality, including all mankind, is contemned as a noli-me-tangere, sensuality breaks forth in unconcealed grossness. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) opens the series of those whose outward lives were blameless while their fantasies were filled with a saintly eroticism. He is succeeded by an innumerable procession of men and women who profaned piety by their love frenzies. There 1 Cf. Pfister, Zum Kampf um die Psychoanalyse, the essay Hysterie und Mystik bei Margarete Ebner, pp. 208 et seq. HISTORY OF PROBLEM OF LOVE 43 were the nuns who in imagination had sexual intercourse with the Saviour, who conceived by him and bore their spiritual spouse a child. In the borderland of lunacy, but admired and envied as miracles of saintliness, by day and by night they suckled and fondled this imaginary infant, regarding it now as a child, and now rather as a lover and a sexual partner. Assimilated with these are many Pro- testant mystics and semi-mystics whose minds were inflamed with a sexually tinged piety. Suffice it to mention Jakob Boehme 1 (1575-1624) and Ludwig von Zinzendorf ' (1700- 1760). The Reformation deposed this shogun who knew nothing of love from his dictatorship over men's faiths, and trans- ferred the supreme authority to love. It is undeniable that the interest in the doctrinal edifice repressed and impaired the interest in love, but the mere conjuncture of religious reform with a revaluation of marriage suffices to show that there was really a design to liberate love in the widest sense-a sense embracing God and mankind. The brief love-spring of Protestant piety was followed by a relapse into religious obsessional neurosis, into orthodoxy and ceremonialism. Dogma and symbolic treat- ment (the sacramental view) triumphed once more over love. 15. The Reformation. 16. Pietism. Although the pietist movement (on the basis of renewed pious love-experiences, resuscitating those of primitive Christianity), and the movement for a rationalised theology (on the basis of a compromise with " the world "), made the banning of love from the religious life obsolete, there was lacking here the psychological interest that might have furthered the solution of our problem. 17. Bacon. Modern philosophy wrestled again and again with the enigma of love, but with little success. No modern philo- 1 Kielholz, Jakob Boehme. 3 Pfister, Die Frommigkeit des Grafen Ludwig von Zinzendorf. A valuable account will be found in Reichel, Zinzendorfs Frbmmigkeit im Licht der Psychoanalyse.. 44 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS sopher has hitherto succeeded in reaching the heights climbed by Plato. No one could get beneath the surface of the problem. There was no psychology of love. People cracked the nut and ate the kernel, but failed to notice the growth of the germ or of the tree. The only interest was in the winning of a concept, but no one got any further than the most general of concepts. We can therefore deal briefly with the earlier modern philosophers. Bacon (1561-1626) gives love the highest place among the virtues, but he is referring to a constructive and not to a merely devotional love.1 However, the chancellor's practical life showed all too clearly that profit loomed more largely before him than the precept of love. i8. Descartes (1596-1650). Descartes tells us that love is an emotional stirring evoked by the movement of the vital spirits, a movement which impels the soul to join itself by an act of will to such objects as seem suitable to it.' Apart from this talk of " vital spirits," which smacks of the magicians and the spiritualists, we find it unsatisfactory that the feelings should have nothing to say in the matter of love, and that a sort of examination is to precede the act of loving. First there is to be a prologue of the " vital spirits," and then a prologue of the soul, which is to harness the intelligence that it may decide as to the quality of the object; then comes a decision, " the object suits me, I must quickly set my will to work ! " After all this preamble, we love. Such a staging of the process reeks of the philosopher's study ; experience knows nothing of it. 19. Spinoza (1632-1677). It is interesting to find that Spinoza harnesses the horses in the reverse order-having first exorcised the vital spirits with the radiance of his realist vision. For him, love is " a joyfulness [laetitia] accompanied by the idea of an external cause " (Ethics, iii. 13). " We see, then, that the lover necessarily strives to secure and to retain the presence of 1 Falckenberg, Geschichte der neueren Philosophic, second edition, P- 57- » Eisler, op. cit. p. 599. HISTORY OF PROBLEM OF LOVE 45 the beloved object, and conversely that the hater strives to secure the removal and the destruction of the detested object." (Ibid.) Elsewhere he tells us : " Love is nothing else than to enjoy a thing and thus become united with it." 1 Concerning the origin of love we read : " Love arises out of the idea and the knowledge we have of a thing, and the greater and more splendid the thing seems to us, the greater and more splendid is the love that we feel." Owing to the weakness of our nature we must perforce love something, and unite ourselves with it, if we are to exist. Now if we love perishable things, such as honour, riches, and pleasure, it is harmful to us, for they make us like unto themselves. But if we use our understanding rightly, we cannot fail to know God, and therefore of necessity to love him as the sole reality. In that case there can be no perturbations such as otherwise are prone to trouble love. This love of God, which is predominantly the knowledge of God, should completely fulfil our love {Ethics, v. 16). Spinoza's leading idea that love arises out of knowledge and is led by knowledge is so persistently refuted by experi- ence that it is needless to argue the matter. Nevertheless, I cannot refrain from pointing out that this much-abused proposition does after all contain a core of truth. Of course the word " knowledge " must not be interpreted here as a logical operation ; but, as we shall frequently have occasion to see, love does really depend upon knowledge in the sense of ideas and thoughts. It depends upon them, provided we understand that we are primarily concerned with uncon- scious processes, and that the decisive factors in love are the affective sensitiveness and the affective need of the person concerned. Subsequent thinkers have been too ready to jettison the intellectualism of such as Socrates and Spinoza. The errors of great minds are apt to contain more essential truth than the irrefutable verities of lesser mortals. Spinoza's most valuable contribution to the psychology of love was his recognition that love-affects can be controlled by a knowledge of their nature. " Inasmuch as the soul enjoys this divine love or blessedness, it has the power of bridling the desires ; for the human power over affects is 1 Spinoza, Kurzgefasste Abhandlung von Gott, dem Menschen und dessen Gluckseligkeit, Kirchmann's edition, p. 54. 46 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS comprised only in knowledge " {Ethics, v. 42). To-day this notion seems to us almost self-evident. But in the lifetime of the renowned lens-grinder it was otherwise. According to Leibnitz, true and pure love is the con- dition in which we take delight in the perfections and the happiness of the beloved object.1 Since God is the noblest object of love, the love of God must afford the highest pleasure of which we are capable. Here, too, the notion is built up out of preconceptions instead of experience. Whereas Plato, Christianity, Thomas Aquinas, and Descartes, have told us that the striving towards an object is the main con- stituent of love, Leibnitz ignores this, and tells us only of a pleasure, a feeling. For him, the ethical factor is excluded ; the winning of pleasure is the decisive point. 20. Leibnitz (1646-1716). 2i. Locke (1632-1704). John Locke is even less satisfactory in his treatment of love. For the English philosopher, love is neither a striving nor a feeling ; it is merely an idea. " Thus anyone reflecting upon the delight which any present or absent thing is apt to produce in him, has the idea we call love." 3 It is not the desire for the beloved which constitutes love, but only the subsequent reflection upon this experience. Love is a secondary product which has passed through the filter of reflection. So pitiful a misunderstanding of the character of an object is almost inconceivable ! 22. Kant (1724-1804). Kant, the great thinker who for a century and a half has served to indicate to other philosophers the direction in which to search for truth, did not in matters of love show himself to be a trustworthy guide. Regarding his theory of marriage, according to which marriage is " the union between two persons of different sexes for the lifelong mutual possession of their sexual qualities," 3 Teichmiiller 1 Leibnitz, Die in der Vernunft begriindeten Prinzipien der Natur und der Gnade, § 16 (Habs' edition, p. 148), Theodicee, preface, § 3, I, 49 ; II, 36. ' Essay concerning human Understanding, Book II, Chapter xx, § 4. 1 Kant, Simtliche Werke, Hartenstein's edition, vol, vii. p. 76 (Meta- physik der Sitten, § 24). HISTORY OF PROBLEM OF LOVE 47 declares that it would not secure approval even from the Indians.1 But we must not forget that the sage of KOnigsberg uttered the foregoing proposition as a jurist and not as a moralist. All the same, behind the definition we can detect the born enemy of marriage, turning up his nose ; and as regards other manifestations of love, if we seek light from Kant our reward is poor. For him love is a feeling which accompanies the perform- ance of our duties ; but it is not only a feeling, not only, as Leibnitz supposed, a sort of pleasure in the perfection of other persons. Rather, love is to be conceived " as a maxim of pleasure (in the practical sense), which has welldoing as its consequence." As such it is the duty of all men towards one another. In all Kant's utterances concerning love, we note an endeavour to restrict to the utmost the element of feeling, and to regard the intelligent or rational element as that which is truly valuable and important. Greatly superior to ordinary friendship, with its agreeable sensations, is " moral friendship," which amounts to " complete trust between two individuals for the mutual disclosure of their private judgments and sensations, in so far as this is com- patible with the maintenance of mutual respect." Love is therewith rightly excluded from the edifice of friendship, which expresses itself in the exchange of thoughts and feel- ings-never assuredly has anyone discussed love in a more arid fashion. Who can fail, in this connexion, to recall the delicious incident when Kant was awaiting two friends in the garden, but fell asleep, and slumbered peacefully until they had come and gone ? Kant's treatment of love for one's neighbour and love for God is similar. " It is excellent to do good to our neighbour out of love for him and out of a sympathetic feeling of benevolence, and it is excellent to be just because of our love for order ; but it is not the true moral maxim of our behaviour, our conduct is not appropriate to our standpoint as rational human beings, if we arrogate, to our- selves the claim, as voluntary agents, proudly to transcend the idea of duty, and, independently of command, to act according to our own pleasure, insisting that in our case, no command is requisite. Duty and obligation are names 1 Teichmiiller, Ueber das Wesen der Liebe, p. 41. 48 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS that can only be given to our relationship to the moral law."1 "This is accordant with the possibility of such a command as, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all they strength, and with all thy mind ; and thy neighbour as thyself. For, inasmuch as this is a command, it insists upon respect for the law which commands love, and does not leave to our choice the acceptance of the principle. But love of God as an inclination (pathological love) is impossible, for God is not an object of the senses. Such a love towards our neighbour is, indeed, possible, but it is not commanded, for it is in no man's power to love his fellow man to order. It is, then, only practical love that is to be understood in this kernel of all laws. To love God means, in this connexion, gladly to do God's commands ; to love our neighbour means, gladly to discharge all our duties towards him. But the command that this shall be our rule cannot be a command that we must have such a feeling in the performance of our duties ; the command merely implies that we should endeavour to have it " (p. ioi). Since man is never wholly free from inclinations and desires which are not necessarily accordant with the moral law, the moral law demands our respect and not our love ; and yet love remains the goal of human endeavour, even though the goal be unattainable (p. 102). It is moral extravagance and arrogance to make inclination the determinant of moral behaviour, instead of duty, that is to say respect for the law whose yoke we have to bear, even though unwillingly (p. 103). It is obvious that here, likewise, Kant discrowns love, and bows beneath the sceptre of stern duty. It never occurs to him that a highly developed love of itself imposes duties. To act out of love is rephrased in the passage quoted, To act as voluntary agents according to our own pleasure ! It amply suffices to act from duty and a sense of obligation ; love is a superadded luxury, though perhaps a very fine one.-Against Kant's contention that Jesus' funda- mental precept is merely an injunction to respect, we may remark that if Jesus had meant this he would certainly have said so. Just as he tells us, Honour thy father and thy mother, so he could have said, Honour God's command- 1 Kant, Kritik der praktischen Vernunft, Kehrbach's edition, p. 100. HISTORY OF PROBLEM OF LOVE 49 ments. Moreover Kant is utterly wrong in his opinion that the love of God and the love of our neighbour are equivalent to the willing fulfilment of duty towards God and duty towards our neighbour. If I love my parents, I shall cer- tainly be glad to keep their commandments ; but because I keep their commandments, it by no means follows that I love them. The love that Jesus urges on us is infinitely richer, and is far more harmonious to human nature, than Kant's arid, professorial morality.1 The command to love God and our neighbour implies that love is something very different from arrogance, from acting according to our own pleasure, and from the other derogatory ideas which Kant, in his failure to understand love, would fain force upon love as necessary parts of it. Where passionate love is concerned, Kant shudders as if he were looking at a venomous serpent. " Affect is like a drinking bout, which leaves a headache even after it has been slept off. ... He who loves can still retain his power of vision ; but he who is ' in love,' is inevitably blinded to the defects of the beloved object-though one who has been in love will be apt to have his sight restored a week after marriage." 3 Here we have the psychology of a confirmed bachelor, set up as a bulwark against any lusting after marriage. Are we to allow Kant to make a virtue of his own incapacity for love ? As regards general love for mankind, Kant dis- played a sufficiency of good feeling. Though he never clasped millions to his breast or pressed a fervent kiss on the world-at-large, his sympathies were rich enough to equip him for a titanic task, although it was performed exclusively in the intellectual sphere. As a moralist, how- ever, he contemptuously banished the true love of our neighbours from his kingdom. What he allowed to remain hardly deserves the name of love.3 Stern duty, like a harsh taskmaster, is in command. Nevertheless Kant knows enough of real life to perceive 1 Cf. Pfister, Zum Kampf um die Psychoanalyse. • Kant, Anthropologic in pragmatischer Hinsicht, Samtliche Werke, vol. vii, PP- 572-3- 3 Cf. Schleiermacher, Grundlinien einer Kritik der bisherigen Sittenlehre, Simtliche Werke, third section, vol. i, p. 278. 50 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS that living nature cannot dispense with inclination " as a natural and animal need." 1 The love of life and of sex are, indeed, the strongest impulses we know.3 But these primi- tive and " pathological " forces must be replaced by the rule of the practical reason and by that of a dutiful service towards our neighbour.3 We see, then, that the " stoi- cising " Kant (as Schleiermacher terms him 4) is unable, from the psychological point of view, to contribute anything of worth to our understanding of love. His rejection of inclination, his limitation to rational and dutiful activity in default of inclination, imply a rigorous, chill, and wearisome imperative, laboriously spurring men to action. Kant's services to ethics were done at the cost of his rejection of a pleasure-seeking (and therefore inadmissible) inclination as the spring of behaviour. But he empties the child out with the bath-water when he rejects, not only egoistic love and unsanctified sensual love, but likewise all genuine love, as a fundamental moral energy. For personal reasons which it is not yet expedient to discuss, he was unable to see that the greatest love without respect for duty would be a sun without radiance. 23. Schleiermacher (1768-1834). The aptest and most profound observations that, since the days of Plato, have been made concerning love, are those of Schleiermacher, the translator of Plato. The treasures are not to be found in Schleiermacher's systematic writings, for it seems as if love could swiftly elude the meshes of the systems. We must turn to the works which in point of form resemble those of Plato : to the Vertraute Briefe uber Lucinde (1800) ; and the Reden uber die Religion (1799). The first of these books, in which Schleiermacher discussed the famous, not to say notorious, novel Lucinde of his friend Friedrich Schlegel, cannot be regarded as a chivalrous production, but it nevertheless gives expression to its author's most intimate convictions, those that were the outcome of far-reaching researches and experiences. The Vertraute Briefe voice Schleiermacher's indignation 1 Anthropologic, etc., p. 588. ' Ibid., p. 598. 3 Kant, Kritik der praktischen Vernunft, pp. 87 et seq., 98, 100. 4 Schleiermacher, op. cit., p. 265. HISTORY OF PROBLEM OF LOVE 51 against those to whom the life of the senses seems no more than a necessary evil, or against " the dull libertinage which boasts of refining and humanising an animal impulse to some such level of that of the culinary art." 1 This humorous allusion implies a recognition of the fact that a sensual impulse may be directed towards something higher than the sensual, a process that is to-day familiar to us under the name of sublimation. Schleiermacher pushes this obser- vation to its logical conclusion, though only in general terms; and he applies it conscientiously in his ethical teaching. " Reflect whether all that is spiritual in man may not in like manner originate from an inner impulse having the nature of instinct, which by degrees only, through sponta* neous activity and through practice, undergoes elaboration to become definite volition and consciousness, and culmi- nates in an action that is complete in itself; and until it has attained this culmination, no permanent relationship between these inner movements and definite objects is even conceivable. Why should it be otherwise in the case of love ? Should we expect that which is the highest in man to make successful progress at the very first attempt, and to move at one step from the most elementary stirrings to the most definite completion ? " 3 Natural love is not merely the temporal beginning, or the foundation upon which the higher life is built up out of other materials. We find, rather, that natural love " dif- fuses itself through everything " and can be discerned in everything (p. 487). Still, everything does not proceed from love alone (p. 488)-a proposition which Plato would have unhesitatingly endorsed. Just as impulsive love can be exalted to the highest functioning, so, conversely, the highest moral and religious spirituality has its roots in the sensual. " God must be in the lovers ; their embrace is in truth his embrace, which they simultaneously and mutually feel, and thereafter also desire. I take no delight in love without this spiritualisation and without the consequent mystical unfolding " (p. 447). The ethical element of spiritual union as an urge to a love 1 Samtliche Werke, § 3, vol. 1, p. 430, * Vertraiite Briefe Uber Lucinde, p. 473. 52 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS fellowship finds expression in the words : " When we track to their most secret recesses our sensations and thoughts and actions, and when we everywhere rediscover the infinite harmony of minds, . . . then, unquestionably, the sacred fire of love glows in us most ardently and divinely, and it is then that we calculate with the utmost delight the supreme mysteries of love " (pp. 488 et seq.). " In the supreme moments of love, the exchange cf consciousness, the entire absorption into the other, is the highest and most essential experience " (p. 490). The following fine passage shows that this mystical ecstasy of love and this absorption into the personality of the beloved are not conceived by Schleiermacher solely as aesthetic pleasure, but are looked upon by him as a moral act in the highest sense of the term : " Whoever is unable to fulfil his being in the world, should not love ; and love should hinder no one in this, but should redouble the pleasure and the zeal " (p. 444). Schleiermacher's view of the psychology of religion is of fundamental importance. In the Reden, he compares the moment of supreme pious exaltation with a love act.1 In the Vertraute Briefe, he goes further than comparisons, and makes positive psychological demands : " Indeed, the reli- gion of love [purely sensual love is meant here] and its worship were incomplete, and therefore had to perish, like every other part of the old religion and culture. But now that the true Uranian Venus has been discovered, the new gods must not persecute the old, which are just as true as they, for in that case we should experience corruption of another kind. Rather, we must now for the first time truly understand the holiness of nature and sensuality ; that is why the most beautiful monuments of antiquity have come down to us, for there must be a restoration in a far more beautiful sense, as is proper to a new and more beautiful era ; the old desire and joy, and the mingling of the bodies and of life, must no longer be regarded as the detached work of a mighty godhead, but as at one with the deepest and most sacred feeling, with the fusion and union of the 1 Schleiermacher, Reden iiber die Religion an die Gebildeten unter ihren Verachtern. Cf. Piinjer, Geschichte der christlichen Religionsphilosophie, vol. ii, p. 182. HISTORY OF PROBLEM OF LOVE 53 two halves of mankind into a mystical whole. No one is fitted to become a citizen of the new world until his vision has penetrated into the recesses of the godhead and of mankind, and until he has grasped the mysteries of this religion " (p. 482). Thus in every true and complete love, body and spirit, the sensual and the ideal, coalesce to an inseparable unity. Lucinde is extravagantly praised because, in this novel, love is displayed as a unity, wherein the spiritual and the sensual, in all their manifestations and in all their charac- teristics, are seen to be most intimately associated (p. 431). Here is an outlook equally remote from the prudery of the British and of the pietists, and from the levity of the French.1 In his first great work, Grundlinien einer Kritik des bisherigen Sittenlehre, Schleiermacher complained that the best among the more serious and more important human relationships, namely friendship, and love in the narrower sense, had been comp'etely ignored by science.2 Although love belonged to one of the most important domains of ethics, it had always been looked upon as mere illusion (p. 276). No attempt had ever been made to show for what reason it was necessary to unify two such dissimilar things as friendship and sexual love (p. 277). If, with Kant, we were to remove from the parental and conjugal relationships the love which Kant called " pathological/' the impulsive energy and the bond of parental and conjugal love would disappear (p. 279). As regards sexual love, the main task of ethics was to show the tie between the natural sexual impulse and a special spiritual need, or to explain how it was that a relationship which originated in a natural impulse could simultaneously be exalted to the spiritual plane (p. 282). In the Entwurf eines Systems dev Sittenlehre, Schleier- macher continually aims at showing how nature and spirit can be welded into one. In point of psychology, he makes no new contributions. Purely metaphysical is the ring of his definition : " Love is the desire of the reason to become spirit, its entry into the organic process ; just as the entry 1 Rade, Die Stellung des Christentums zum Geschlechtsleben. Religions- geschichtliche Volksbiicher, series v, issue 7-8, p, 61. ' Werke, § 3, vol. i, p. 275. 54 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS of matter into the organic process, is the desire of matter to become body." 1 To sum up, we may commend the great theologian for having been the first among men of learning to disclose lucidly the sexual-ethical basic ideas of the New Testament, and for having done so in a thoroughly dignified fashion and with an incorruptible zeal for truth. He was the first who consistently displayed the interconnexion between the natural and the moral aspects of marriage : recognising its natural aspect to be not merely a tribute to the animal and the elemental, but also a stimulus towards ascent; and recognising the spiritual to be not merely a triumph over the sensual (happily deprived of its power for harm), but the supreme burgeoning of the divine energies that had been germinating in the impulsive life. After Plato, Schleier- macher was the first to recognise the enormous compre- hensiveness of the domain of natural love. This rediscovery of natural love is intimately connected with the discovery in the psychology of religion which transformed all the systematic theology of Protestantism- the discovery that the sphere of religion is mainly in the realm of feeling. The connexion is just as intimate and necessary as was the connexion in the days of Luther and Zwingli between a reform in religion and a reform in sexual ethics. Unfortunately Schleiermacher has as yet been little appreciated as the first great Protestant writer on sexual ethics, for the reason that Protestantism is still permeated by the Catholic view of the natural impulses. That, too, is why for almost a century Protestant theologians have con- tributed nothing to the psychology of love. Since the days of Schleiermacher, the philosophers, too, have added little to our knowledge of love. Even Herbart, who knew that for educational purposes love was no less important than authority,3 is extremely disappointing as far as psychological and ethical ideas are concerned. 24. Herbart (1776-1841). 1 Schleiermacher, Entwurf eines Systems der Sittenlehre, Skmtliche Werke, § 3, vol. v, p. 364. » Herbart, Umriss padagogischer Vorlesungen, Wendt's edition, p. 32. HISTORY OF PROBLEM OF LOVE 55 25. Schopenhauer (1788-1860). Schopenhauer's views on love have already been con- sidered. (See p. 22.) In his Mikrokosmus, Hermann Lotze made a profound study of the riddle of man, but spared only fugitive glances for love. 26. Lotze (1817-1881). 27. Hartmann (1842-1906). Eduard von Hartmann, however, in his main treatise on ethics, has more to say about love than in the Philo- sophie des Unbewussten, where, except for a few vigorous borrowings from Schopenhauer, he can produce little more than a certain amount of cheap paint to blacken the radiancy.1 In Das sittliche Bewusstsein he describes love as an obscure sense of identity and nothing more (p. 233), shown above all by maternal love ; also as a longing for union, and indeed, as a negation of egoism in virtue of the expansion of the individual self beyond the domain of the ego. " Inasmuch as we ideally anticipate the longed-for union, we expend our own self in this sense, that it comes to comprise in addition the ego of the beloved person, so that self-seeking, which is commonly identified with egoism, now includes seeking for another, and self-love comprises love for another." 2 Thus in love there occurs an identi- fication, inasmuch as the lover includes another within him- self. Hartmann instances a selfish woman, who, from the moment she becomes a mother, will grudge no sacrifice for her child, though she remains selfish in her relationship with all other persons (p. 224). Such a one-sided love is certainly worthy of respect as contrasted with the morality of those whose canon is expediency, authority, or aestheticism (p. 225). Sympathy is not, as Schopenhauer believes, the same thing as love, for in sympathy the expansion of the sphere of the ego to include the suffering person is no more than transient; the sympathy is merely a passive and 1 Hartmann, Philosophie des Unbewussten, vol. i, pp. 190-209, ; vol. ii, pp. 311-21. * Hartmann, Das sittliche Bewusstsein, second edition p. 224. 56 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS temporary reaction of the feelings. Only in its rare and extreme forms is there lacking to sympathy the conscious- ness that the identification of the ego with that of another is but fugitive, that the identification concerns simply this one feeling, and has no bearing upon the other interests of the two persons concerned (pp. 226 et seq.). Where sym- pathy grows out of love, we know on the other hand more or less distinctly that in the special case under consideration the identification is no more than a peculiar manifestation of the general identification of the lovers, a manifestation of the integration of their interests ; and that this identifi- cation will persist as a permanent trend of the will, even when the temporary stimulus to the manifestation of sym- pathetic feeling has passed away. Sympathy is a passively receptive yearning, whereas love is an actively spontaneous yearning, for the practical realisation of the feeling of identification (p. 227). In the first instance, sympathy is a passive feeling, and only in the second instance can it stimulate the will; on the other hand, love is in the first instance a longing for identification, in the second an endeavour to promote the welfare of the beloved, and only in the third instance is it a modification of the feelings by events that concern the welfare of the beloved (p. 227). The natural aims form the background of love, and it is the business of metaphysics to help towards our under- standing of these aims. But even in the love between kindred, friendship, a sense of duty and a consciousness of the solidarity of the family, must be contributory factors (p. 235) > and this must still more be the case with friendship (p. 236), which Hartmann describes as ennobling and spiritu- alising all sexual and parental love. In other respects the individual is merely the blind tool of an impersonal power, and love ceases with the attainment of its natural aim. But the fusion of love and friendship provides the highest form of love (p. 239). As regards the moral significance of love, Hartmann is certainly right in pointing out that love per se is not entitled to claim moral authority. Grave offences are committed in the name of love. However, the following proposition is valid : "The love that is animated by a clear and definite moral philosophy may be regarded as the loftiest moral HISTORY OF PROBLEM OF LOVE 57 revelation of the absolute " (p. 246). In default of such an ethic, love cannot attain its aim of promoting the welfare of the beloved. • We must admit that credit is due to the philosopher of the unconscious for having considered the problem of love more energetically, carefully, and comprehensively than any of his predecessors since Schleiermacher. But we cannot forego criticism. Take, first of all, the most characteristic utterance of Hartmann. Is it true that love is nothing more than " an obscure feeling of identity ? " Does love signify nothing more than that the lover includes another within himself ? According to Hegel's definition : " The chief meaning of love is the consciousness of my unity with another, so that I am not isolated for myself." What is here described as a function of the understanding, Hartmann, who is somewhat more carefully equipped, loads into the chariot of feeling. Beyond question his " feeling of identity " contains elements from the realm of ideas, just as Hegel's consciousness of unity is not free from the admixture of feeling. Hartmann believes that the maternal love shown by a selfish woman is a proof that an obscure feeling of material identity lies at the basis of love. But how many twins hate one another, whilst two persons between whom there is no kinship and who may even belong to different races may have an ardent love for one another. When a stallion loves a lamb that frequents his stable, are we to suppose that there is a sense of identity ? Or when a tom cat loves his mistress, as may also happen according to Hartmann, are we to suppose that in the cat's mind the following logical proposition has been obscurely formulated : " My mistress is only a part of my feline ego ? " Such a philosophy exists rather in the mind of a Hartmann than in the mind of a cat ! Some writers, as for instance Haberlin,1 lay more stress upon spiritual identification than upon materal, but this is likewise fallacious. We often love persons who in important characteristics are extremely different from ourselves. Hartmann, moreover, takes a one-sided view by con- tinuing to speak of the lover as including the other's ego within his own. Love is quite as much a self-surrender of 1 Hiberlin, Wege und Irrwege der Erziehung, p. 169. 58 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS the ego to that of the other person, and the latter feeling may be stronger than the feeling of taking possession of the object of love. This finds expression in the Middle High German song : Du bist min, ih bin din : Des solt du gewis sin.1 Furthermore, Hartmann's definition fails to take into account a characteristic which ought not to be overlooked after so much intellectual work has been devoted to making it known. Love is not feeling merely; it is also will. Haberlin amends the definition when he speaks of a tendency to identification ; but in the main point, in his insistence upon identification, he misses the mark no less than Hartmann. Better is the definition of love as a tendency to or a longing for union, but this excellent thought ought not to be spoiled by the addition of the fallacious notion that the union is essentially nothing but an expansion of the ego. I cannot agree with what Hartmann writes concerning sympathy. It is not true that sympathy without love is only a transient emotion. A girl may throughout life deplore the tragical lot of a rejected wooer. But even when the emotion of sympathy is no more than transient, if the person who feels it be not exceedingly superficial there is no associated consciousness that the affect will be of brief duration. Such a conviction comes from without, and is not an essential part of the emotion of sympathy. In this matter, Hartmann has again been blinded by his meta- physics, instead of studying psychology. In reality, sym- pathy is originally a form of love. What normal and uncor- rupted human being has ever heard of another's suffering without a stirring of sympathy ? Now, as a rule, sympathy implies an inclination, implies love. The sense of attraction may be annulled by processes which we shall have to con- sider in detail later, and in that case the feeling of sympathy is voided of the attractive impulse; but this change is secondary. A rejected lover may still be regarded with a feeling which is part of the general love for mankind. Should even this be lacking, the persistence of sympathy 1 Thou art mine, I am thine : Thereof canst thou certain be. HISTORY OF PROBLEM OF LOVE 59 would certainly be a strange and rare abnormality. That would be the sort of sympathy felt by the man who rang for his butler and said : " John, show this poor devil out; he is breaking my heart! " Very fine is what Hartmann writes concerning the union oj love with friendship and moral philosophy. In his demand for the association of duty and love, he is enor- mously in advance of Kant. 28. Teichmuller (1832-1888). Among the systematic writers of philosophy, Gustav Teichmiiller has devoted special attention to love. Though he does not occupy a conspicuous place in the history of philosophy, this fine thinker must on no account be ignored. He is the only philosopher since Plato who has written a monograph on the subject we are considering. His book on the Nature of Love sets forth the topic in a strictly sys- tematic fashion with occasional reference to predecessors in the same field. He defines love as " the impulse towards the good, production of the good, enjoyment of the good, and the living energy of the good." 1 So strongly does he insist upon the emotional aspect of love that he actually identifies impulse and love, except for the unim- portant distinction that impulse is always inborn, whereas love proceeds from impulse as habit, acquired energy, or disposition (pp. 94 et seq). Here are some notable points : the headline (p. 83), " love is unconscious " ; the statement that love originates in children without their noticing it, that at the age when the erotic tendency is fully developed the love need is present before the appearance of an object towards which it may happen to be directed (p. 84) ; and that the study of animal evolution shows clearly that love has its foundations in the unconscious regions of the mind (p. 84). Discussing the laws of the amatory life, Teichmiiller tells us of two. First there is the law of dispersion, in accordance with which every being seeks through love the objects by means of which it becomes inwardly free and joyful (p. 134). The second law is that of the attraction towards the 1 Teichmtiller, Ueber das Wesen der Liebe, p. 265. 60 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS centre, in accordance with which all our activities are compacted into the unity of life (pp. 107 et seq). Love should not be classified according to its objects, as, for instance, God, man, and the ego ; for quite different varieties of love may be directed towards each of these objects (p. 148). The different forms of love's activities should guide us in our classification. Teichmiiller therefore distinguishes three varieties of love : the love of knowledge (p. 147), the love of good (p. 181), and the love of art (p. 190) ; but he adds that these must not be regarded as absolutely distinct (p. 205). A further classification is that of the three stages : first, the natural desires which man shares with lower animals (p. 198) ; secondly, reason (moral disposition and virtue, the rational and moral arts-p. 199) ; thirdly, philosophy and religion, which both contemplate things in their supreme unity (p. 201). We love other persons: («) because they amuse or instruct us; (&) because they gratify our self-regarding impulse, because they are useful to us ; or, (c) because they gratify us aesthetically or technically, or give us the oppor- tunity of agreeable activity (pp. 226 and 227). There are no other reasons for love (p. 227). We must note, however, " that we always demand a certain irrational element in love, and that we consider that an explanation of love tends to deprive it of its consecra- tion and its charm " (p. 228). We do not give love to the person who is per se the best, but to the person who is the right one for us (p. 207). Since love as desire is invariably directed towards an object, this object always seems to be enjoyed or enjoyable (p. 150). " We project our love into this object, and do not distinguish between it and our feeling " (p. 150). But in reality what we are enjoying is only our own self, and the object is merely a means to that enjoyment (p. 151). Never- theless, love is not simply egoism, for in egoism we seek only our own wellbeing, regardless whether this involves pain and misfortune for others, and regardless of moral considerations (p. 256). But in the higher stages of love we find the love of mankind, sympathy, and respect for moral ideas (p. 256). Since love is always concerned with the good, and since HISTORY OF PROBLEM OF LOVE 61 from a higher standpoint the good is seen to expand into the divine idea of the all, love in its essence is invariably directed towards God as our sole and ultimate aim, so that in our love for children, friends, the beloved, music, science, etc., what we are really loving is God (pp. 265 et seq.). This weighty investigation fails to provide us with that of which we are in search, namely a profounder under- standing of the psychological nature of our object, and especially of the laws of its evolution. Teichmiiller does well to start from the love need, but he does not examine the nature of this need. He tells us that it is always directed towards the good, and he compares impulse with love ; but these are vague generalities which can hardly be said to help us far on our way. Besides, the comparison is unsound, for impulse can merely be present as a general disposition, whereas love only exists when directed towards a particular object. We may speak, therefore, of an impulse towards love, a love impulse. This is an extremely important distinction. Our author is not precise enough in his statement that love is unconscious. We have to ask ourselves whether what is assumed to be unconscious love may not be merely love to which little attention is paid, and it is doubtful whether we know enough about consciousness in the lower grades of animal life to be entitled to draw any such con- clusion as the one drawn by Teichmiiller. The two laws of love are of no assistance towards an understanding of their evolution. Nor do they afford us any guidance to conduct. The classifications are not very enlightening. The reasons for love enumerated by Teichmiiller do not include the most important determinants, the ones to whose examination the present work is mainly devoted. Fortunately it is untrue that an explanation of love always tends to rob it of its charm ; and unfortunately it is utterly false to say that we always love the person who is the right one for us. I think that the denial of the egoistic nature of love is excellent, but the demonstration of the unselfish character of the manifestations of love ought to have been strengthened by showing that these unselfish elements are an essential 62 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS part of human nature, and by furnishing proof that a purely selfish love is a morbid or degenerative phenomenon. The theory that all love is essentially the love of God belongs to philosophy, not to psychology. 29. Nietzsche (1844-1900). In his wrestlings with the problem of love, Friedrich Nietzsche was unencumbered by the cuirass of philosophical systematism and by the sword of psychological method. He is not to be regarded as a conqueror who occupies a territorial area in accordance with a well-designed plan ; he is a raider of incomparable audacity, and he knows how to get away with his plunder-though this is apt to be a good deal damaged in the process. Like life in general,1 love is for him nothing but a mani- festation of the will-to-power. To speak more precisely, love is not (as has falsely been supposed) self-sacrifice and altruism ; it is a taking or giving as the outcome of a super- fluity of individuality.3 Consequently the only people who can love are the complete personalities, those who stand solidly on their own feet ; persons without individuality are bad lovers, even in the case of God and fatherland. Love is flanked on one side by egoism and on the other by altruism.3 He discloses love to us in all possible stages of its evolution. Writing of it in the stage of sexuality, he says : " The degree and kind of a person's sexuality form part even of the topmost summits of his mind." 4 He has a chapter devoted to " sensuality in its various dresses " : I. as idealism (Plato) ; 2. in the religion of love ; 3. in art. Of the last he tells us : " The sensuality of the artist is vested in an object which in other respects he still honours and esteems." 5 " Sensuality (perhaps) does not pass into abeyance upon the supervention of the aesthetic state of mind, as Schopenhauer supposed ; it is merely transfigured, so that it no longer enters the consciousness as a sexual stimulus." 6 ' Nietzsche, Zur Genealogie der Moral, Werke, vol. vii, § I, p. 372. * Nietzsche, Der Wille zur Macht, Brahn's edition, p. 64. 5 Ibid., p. 65. 4 Jenseits von Gut und Bose, Werke, vol. vii, § I, p. 93. J Der Wille zur Macht, pp. 295 et seq. * Zur Genealogie der Moral, p. 418. HISTORY OF PROBLEM OF LOVE 63 Speaking of the psychological effects of love, he tells us that through love the individual acquires that feeling of power and freedom which morality and dutiful activity can never bring. " From love one does no evil; it is rather as if one were acting from duty and virtue." 1 Altruism, likewise, is only a means for the preservation of this sense of power. " Love confers the sense of power at its highest." 2 " Helpfulness and usefulness continually arouse the feeling of power." 3 Altruism is itself in the service of egoism ; for the most part it is only a circuitous route towards the maintenance of the sense of personal vitality and self-esteem.4 The saviour and the shepherd, in his love for mankind, his love of truth, etc., is inspired, just like one who is influenced by sexual love, with a desire for conquest, for possession, even though he believes him- self animated by the spirit of self-sacrifice. " Essentially, what he loves is his ' tool,' his ' horse ' ; he has a convic- tion that this or that belongs to him as something he can use for his own purposes." 5 The love of God is only the idolisation of the individual's own love feelings.6 Christian love, which in the small Jewish community burst forth from beneath the glowing ashes of humility and wretchedness, induced in colder and more distinguished races a rise in the temperature of the soul: " The discovery was made that the most miserable life may become rich and inestimable thanks to a rise in temperature ..." 7 Nietzsche is by no means disposed to deny all value to love. He appraises its power at a high rate. Art is " inlaid into the angelic instinct known as love ; we find it to be the most powerful stimulant of life." 8 He writes : " The lover is worth more, is stronger. His entire wealth is greater, more powerful, more complete, than before he began to love. The lover becomes a spendthrift, being now wealthy enough for this." But the sequel shows that these words are not intended to convey praise alone : " The lover is now venturesome, has become foolishly magnanimous and patient; he believes once more in God, and believes 1 Der Wille zur Macht, p. 142. ' Ibid., p. 141. J Ibid., p. 142. ♦ Ibid., p. 260. 5 Ibid., p. 259. * Ibid., p. 142. 7 Ibid., p. 141. » Ibid., p. 297. 64 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS in virtue, because he believes in love. On the other hand, this fool of happiness grows wings, and develops new capa- cities ; even the door to art is opened to him. If from lyric poetry we detach the tones and the words due to the suggestion of this intestinal fever, how much lyricism and mystery will remain ? Art for art's sake, perhaps. The amateurish croaking of chilly frogs, despairing in their marsh. . . . Love created all the rest." 1 Admiration and mockery are similarly mingled in the following passage : " From the stem of this tree of revenge and hate, . . . there grew something equally incomparable, a new love, the profoundest and most sublime of all the kinds of love. Let no one suppose, however, that it sprang forth as a real negation of the thirst for revenge, as the opposite of the Jewish hatred ! No, the reverse is the truth ! This love grew out of the hate, as its flower, as the triumphant flower unfolding itself petal by petal in the purest radiance of the sun ; with the same impulse, in the kingdom of light and loftiness, it reached out towards the aims of that very hatred, towards conquest, booty, and fraud, the aims towards which the roots of hatred were reaching out further and more greedily as they sank into everything that was deep and evil. This Jesus of Nazareth, the incarnate gospel of love, the ' redeemer ' bringing blessedness and victory to the poor, the sick, and the sin- ful-was he not, in truth, fraud in its most sinister and irresistible form ? " 2 The philosopher of the superman is never weary of depicting the execrable effects of love. He thunders against the love of woman : "In the love of woman is injustice and blindness towards all that she does not love. Even in the enlightened love of woman there is always pitfail, and lightning, and night, as well as light. Nor is woman capable of friendship. Women are still cats-or birds-or, at best, cows." 3-" Thou visitest women ? Forget not the whip." 4 Nietzsche takes a very unfavourable view of sympathy. With a violence of which a large part is doubtless directed 1 Der Wille zur Macht, p. 298. 1 Zur Genealogie der Moral, p. 314. 3 Also sprach Zarathustra, Pocket edition, p. 82. < Ibid., p. 98. HISTORY OF PROBLEM OF LOVE 65 against the once idolised but now despised Schopenhauer, he exclaims : " Your eyes are too cruel for my taste, as you look around lustfully for sufferers. Have you not dressed up your voluptuousness and named it sympathy ? " 1 One of the commands in his new table of the laws is : " Grow callous ! " 3 He has a poor opinion of love of one's neighbour. " War and courage have done greater things than love of one's neighbour. It is not your sympathy but your bravery which hitherto has saved the unfortunate." 3 But the whole flood of his hatred is discharged upon Christian love. We have already been told that love is the offspring of hate, and that love renders hate aid in the most ingenious manner. All the reproaches uttered by Nietzsche in the manifold registers of his powerful voice turn funda- mentally round the one idea that Christian love corrupts the natural instincts, whose meaning and aim is the will- to-power. " Christianity gave Eros a draught of poison. He did not die of it, but degenerated into a reprobate." 4 Christianity hurled filth at sexuality, and cultivated a des- tructive asceticism, whose essential aim was merely sensual indulgence.5 With his advocacy of love of one's neighbour, the ascetic priest prescribes the will-to-power.6 The indi- vidual is robbed of his freedom, and in his thoughts and actions becomes a mere creature of the herd. He is tamed, discouraged, unmanned.7 The result, upon a nervous system already disordered,8 is to induce hysterical epidemics, con- vulsive seizures, paralyses, depressions, mass frenzies, and religious neuroses of the most various kinds, which devastate the history of the human race.9 " Hardly anything is known to me which has been more destructive to health and racial vigour, especially in the case of Europeans, than this ascetic ideal." 10 Nietzsche, however, is far from rejecting love ; his desire is that it shall be restored to its original perfection. The sensual elements of love are to come into their own once more, and for this reason he sings the praises of voluptuous- 1 Also sprach Zarathustra, p. 79. 1 Ibid., p. 312. 3 Ibid., p. 67. 4 Jenseits von Gut und Bose, Werke, vol. vii, p. 108. s Genealogie der Moral, Werke, vol. vii, pp. 399, 452, 455 and 459. 6 Ibid., p. 45o. 7 Ibid., p. 459. 8 Ibid., p. 459. » Ibid., p. 460. 10 Ibid., p. 460. 66 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS ness.1 Concerning marriage, he says : " Even concubinage has been corrupted-by marriage." 3 Yet he finds splendid words in which to extol the tie between man and woman. There is a noble reverence in the following passage : " But even your best love is only an ecstatic semblance and a painful ardour. It is a torch to light you to higher ways." 3 " Straightforward persons should say to one another: ' We love one another : let us see to it that we continue to love one another.' " 4 Passion and affect are to be restored.5 Sensuality is once more to find its place in genuine love.6 Nor does he wholly cast out the love of mankind, although " the love of things and phantoms seems of higher worth." 7 " I love mankind," says Zarathustra-Nietzsche.8 There is a long enumeration, too long to quote, of all the objects of love. A few only can be mentioned : "I love him who makes of his virtue his passion and his doom; thus, for the sake of his virtue he wishes both to go on living and to cease to live." 9 "I love him whose soul is prodigal, who expects no thanks and gives nothing back, for he ever bestows, and takes no thought for himself." 10 " I love him whose soul is deep even in adversity, and who may perish from a trifling experience. I love him who is free of spirit and free of heart." 11 "I love him who wishes to create out- side himself, and thus perishes."12 " I love those who despise greatly." "I love everything that sees clearly and speaks frankly." m " I love the brave." *5 " How greatly I love everyone to whom I can speak ! Even my enemies form part of my happiness ! " 16 Thus the poet philosopher is able to say of himself : " My soul, likewise, is a lover's song " x7-surely one of the most beautiful phrases ever uttered by mortal lips. But we are definitely told that this love is utterly different from Christian love : " Woe unto all lovers who have not yet attained an altitude above all sympathy ! All great love 1 Also sprach Zarathustra, pp. 276 et seq. 1 Jenseits von Gut und Bose, p. 102. 3 Also sprach Zarathustra, p. 104. ♦ Ibid., p. 308. 5 Der Wille zur Macht, p. 80. 6 Jenseits von Gut und Bose, p. 105. 7 Also sprach Zarathustra, p. 88. * Ibid., p. 11. 9 Ibid., p. 17. 10 Ibid., p. 17. 11 Ibid., p. 18. '» Ibid., p. 94. '3 Ibid., p. 388. M Ibid., p. 379. '5 Ibid., p. 305. »< Ibid., p. 121. "7 Ibid., p. 155. HISTORY OF PROBLEM OF LOVE 67 is above sympathy, for it ever desires to create the beloved." 1 " Do not care for your neighbour ! " 2 Man's first duty is to love himself; thereafter he may love his neighbour as himself.3 Nietzsche loves freedom, and the air blowing across the fresh earth.4 He loves the superman, 5 but above all he loves the land of his children.6 And the greatest and deepest love is religious. It breaks forth in the oft-quoted words : " Never yet have I found the woman by whom I would bear children, unless it were this woman whom I love. For I love thee, O Eternity ! For I love thee, O Eternity ! " This wealth of notable but largely anarchistic thoughts cannot be understood except in relation to Nietzsche's personality; or to put the matter more definitely, in con- nexion with his terrible and hopeless struggle against the disease that ultimately laid him low. The will-to-power, which dominates the whole scheme of ideas, betrays all too clearly the rattling of the chains of a prisoner sentenced to illness for life. The recognition of this does not deprive his thoughts of their value ; but we can understand why so many persons regard Nietzsche's descriptions of love as caricatures, like the reflection of the sun in a distorted mirror. It was natural that when his mind began to give way Nietzsche should describe himself as Christ the crucified. We will not here consider this psychological transition. How often has it been noticed that an invalid is granted exceptional clarity of vision as a compensation for indes- cribable sufferings and deprivations. Our study of this complicated subject will reveal to us in due course whether sexuality does in truth supply sap to the highest and noblest blossoms on the tree of spiritual culture. The thought is one we have already encountered in the writings of Plato. The struggle we have been witnessing does not concern love in general but love after the Christian model. That is to say, the problem is not psychological but historical. It is probable that to-day there can be few persons left who, like Nietzsche, have formed their ideas as to what 1 Also sprach Zarathustra, p. 130. » Ibid., p. 291. 3 Ibid., p. 252. 4 Ibid., p. 183. 5 Ibid., p. 52. 6 Ibid., pp. 177 and 197. 7 Ibid., pp. 334-339- 68 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS Christianity means by love, and as to what the essential nature of Christianity is, from the writings of Overbeck, the Basle theologian. Nearly thirty years ago, when I sat at the feet of this learned man, his doctrine was for me a psychological problem rather than a system of scientific instruction. We recognised (at least, that was how it struck me and many of my fellow-students) the power of a man of genius ; but it appeared to us that we were somewhat reluctantly filling our pails, not from a sparkling spring, but with tepid water from an overflowing tank. There seemed to be a gnawing wound in the man's soul. He never had an intimate personal relationship with any of his students. Owing to his lack of magnetism, at his lectures we breathed the fusty atmosphere of intolerable boredom. It is simply untrue to say that Jesus, with a monkish detestation of the impulsive life, contemned sexuality. He who said that a man " shall cleave to his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh " (Matthew xix. 5), reiterating it in the next verse, " wherefore they are no more twain but one flesh," was no ascetic. Although early Christianity was soon tinged with ascetic elements, this was not the result of the imitation of Christ, but was the outcome of the en- forced struggle against the cult of unsanctified sensuality which Nietzsche regards with far too favourable an eye. Monasticism, orthodoxy, the muzzling of free thought, and the curbing of free activity, deplorable though they were, are explicable in view of historical considerations, and can never justify Nietzsche's rough and sometimes coarse attacks on the hero of Golgotha. When the unhappy antichrist makes war against altru- ism, he ought to know that he is distorting Jesus' thoughts. The generalisation that love for mankind is simply love for one's horse, love for something one can make use of, is, psychologically speaking, so utterly false that we can only suppose that Nietzsche must have studied the content of the love consciousness in egoists exclusively, and must then have transferred the results to humanity-at-large. The contention that in all the instances in which people hazard their own lives in the hope of saving others from imminent death, the motive is a desire for reward here or HISTORY OF PROBLEM OF LOVE 69 hereafter, is a childish fiction which every zoologist can confute. Are we to suppose that a she-bear who dies for her cubs is counting upon such a reward ? Should any person imagine that his conscience, his sense of self-respect, his interest in his soul's peace, makes it imperative upon him to hasten to the rescue of a fellow mortal in danger- this serves merely to prove that it is in the nature of the individual to be concerned as to his neighbour's welfare. Again, the meaning of Christian sympathy is turned topsy-turvy by Nietzsche. We have already shown that the haphazard blows of this raging berserker may touch Schopenhauer, but cannot affect Jesus. The man who said that war really brought more blessings than love of one's neighbour could bring, was Nietzsche the soldier and militarist, not Nietzsche the sage. Let me hasten to challenge the assertion that Christianity condemns sexuality as such. To-day, more than ever, we have good reason to know the evils that befall mankind when the sexual life is left to the promptings of unbridled lust. Christianity lifted the life of the sexes out of the mire into which it had been thrust by the brute manifes- tations of sensual desire. If we do, indeed, suppose the trampling down of the masses to be supreme wisdom ; if we look upon the superman, whom Nietzsche describes as having the characteristics of a robber and beast of prey, as the true saviour; if we believe his evolution to be the final aim of universal history-then we shall be consistent in abandoning all the restraints of sexual ethics. But for my part, I am not inclined to envy these tyrant souls, which look upon history with the vacant gaze of a child rather than with the intelligence of a thinker. What a decadence ! They climb the topmost tower, these unhappy invalids, and proclaim their sense of weakness with the clamour of mega- lomaniacs ; and the more urgent their sense of inferiority, the more boastful are the antics of these poor would-be- greats ! They despise the people, and delude themselves with the fancy that they are gods, shutting their ears to the still, small voice that speaks to them from the darkest but most candid recesses of their being : " Thou art a sick man, a weakling, foredoomed to death ! " There is much of what Nietzsche says, concerning the 70 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS sensual element in asceticism, with which we cannot fail to agree; and the same remark applies to what he writes anent religious maladies. But we must not anticipate. Where this man whom unhappy love has made a deadly enemy of Christianity is describing his love, where his soul becomes a lover's song, he draws near to true Christianity, and many of his most vigorous thoughts are imbued with the very spirit of the Gospels. Think of the anguished cry, " For I love you, O Eternity ! " The whole dreadful edifice of the Nietzschean doctrine (which, with its clash of arms and its moaning of the oppressed has been so pain- fully refuted by the world war) is at bottom the savage wrath of an unhappy creature who knew no greater longing than that of being Christ. It is the raging of one who has been excluded from the Garden of Eden. 30. Scientific Psychology. This finishes our account of the treatment of love in the writings of the philosophers. Plato, the first to discuss the theory of love, has never been transcended by his suc- cessors. Indeed, not one of them has ever reached Plato's level; after him, no philosopher has ever studied the subject thoroughly. How are we to account for this failure ? Are we to believe what Nietzsche wrote concerning sexual love : " Incontestably, as long as philosophers have existed, . . . they have displayed a typical philosopher's rancour towards the life of the senses. Schopenhauer merely gives the most eloquent, and if one has ear for it the most engaging and charming, expression of this rancour. Moreover, the philosophers are, in truth, cordially inclined towards the whole ascetic ideal. . . . Consequently the philo- sopher loathes marriage, and detests anyone who advocates marriage. What great philosopher has there ever been who was a married man ? Heraclitus, Plato, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibnitz, Kant, and Schopenhauer, were all un- married ; nay more, one cannot even think of them as married. A married philosopher is a figure of fun." 1- Nietzsche exaggerates. Great philosophers have been married, though often less happily than their wisdom might * Zur Genealogie der Moral, pp. 411-412. HISTORY OF PROBLEM OF LOVE 71 have led us to expect. Besides, there is a love in which sensuality by no means occupies the foreground. We shall see later how intellectualism is founded upon a repression of love, so that the coolness of most philosophers towards the problem of love need hardly surprise us. Nietzsche represents the transition from the philosopher to the psychologist. Let us now turn to scientific psychology. A great disillusionment awaits us. Love is certainly one of the supreme powers of the mind, and we should have expected that the psychologists would have undertaken serious researches concerning the course and the laws of the amatory life. We may excuse the earlier psychologists, those who adopted the philosophical outlook, for their failure in this regard, seeing that they were immersed in the study of the nature of the soul, the connexion between body and mind, and similar speculations. But their successors, whose method was one of direct observation, their successors, who claimed to keep in touch with reality, may certainly be cen- sured for having neglected this enormously important topic even more scandalously than the philosophers. The reason of their failure to consider love is to be found in their inability to get beyond the traditions of materialism, and in their lack of understanding of the characteristics of the mind. They have no interest in anything which cannot be stretched upon the rack of experiment. They explore the mind with the aid of numerous instruments of physical research, much as the seven Swabians in the story explored the supposed evil spirit with a spear; and when a new and unfamiliar pheno- menon like the activity of the unconscious makes its appear- ance, they take to their heels-at least, such has been the behaviour of most of the German psychologists. On the other hand, for the last half century and more they have been content with the parrot-like repetition of ancient for- mulas and dogmas concerning the nature of feeling and will, concerning the non-existence and the inscrutability of the creative unconscious. But, however hopeless the confusion in their own ranks, and however sterile their tedious chatter, they form a compact opposition against any new investi- gators who will not make scientific salvation dependent upon a repetition of the old patter, and who refuse to regard mortal terror in face of mental phenomena as the climax of wisdom. 72 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS The psychologists of the old school, with their barren experi- ments which completely fail to satisfy the conditions of genuine experimental research, have made of their science an object of scorn and compassion when it ought to be the queen among the sciences. This elementary trifling upon which so vast an amount of energy is expended, this pitiful scholasticism which is taught by German professors and expounded in German textbooks, and which has provided nothing of value for pedagogy, psychiatry, criminology, or the conduct of life-how can it venture to arrogate the name of psychology ? It is not because so many investigators repudiate the existence of the soul in the philosophical sense as a metaphysical reality, that we have no science of psy- chology. The reason rather is that the so-called psychologists prowl round the decisive facts a knowledge of which is one of the most crying needs of the day, much as cats prowl round a saucer of hot milk. Unless, indeed, they take advan- tage of the fact that the food is not yet cool, and declare : " These alleged phenomena are not there ; nothing can exist which is not in our records ! " But although this attitude towards the creative uncon- scious may still be successful for a time, it would be hard to deny that love is an effective force, that it is one of the main determinants of our happiness or our unhappiness, that it plays a part in highly complicated evolutionary processes concerning which information is urgently required-and yet the German scientific psychologists hardly raise a finger in the attempt to lighten our darkness.1 However busy our search for these matters in the text- books of psychology, we shall go empty away. Take, for instance, Wilhelm Wundt, the most highly respected psycho- logist of our day. Neither in his Grundziige der fthysiolo- gischen Psychologic nor in his Grundriss der Psychologic is there a word about love ! I should regard it as a more pardonable sin of omission if a treatise on the origin and contents of the New Testament were to ignore the Johannine 1 The remarks in the text are based upon an eager study of psychology during more than twenty years, a study which has resulted in one of the bitterest and most painful disillusionments of my scientific career. Cf. Pfister, Wahrheit und Schbnheit in der Psychanalyse, pp. 117-120; also the first essay, Die Psychoanalyse als psychologische Methode, in Zum Kampf um die Psychoanalyse, pp. 12 et seq. HISTORY OF PROBLEM OF LOVE 73 writings, or if a textbook of pathology were to omit mention of the diseases of the heart. But this is the way " psychology is usually written. Most textbooks of psychology (and their name is legion) are either silent about love as if their authors had never heard of it, or merely allude to love in timid parentheses. It never seems to have occurred to most psychologists that the evolution of the amatory life has important bearings upon the formation of character and upon moral efficiency, and that love is not without moment in relation to the happiness of life. Or, if they do recognise these facts, they say remark- ably little about them. I take haphazard from my shelves the books of Brentano, Ebbinghaus, Elsenhans, Hbffding, Hbfler, James, Jerusalem, Jodi, Kirchner, Lazarus, Miinsterberg, Natorp, Rehmke, Spencer, Stohr, Volkmar, Witasek, Ziehen-not one of these writers has ventured to tackle the theme seriously. At the utmost, the reader can find a few brief observations, which contain mere commonplaces. 3i. Durr (1877-1912). Ernst Durr was the first to undertake a detailed study of the topic, in his rewriting of Ebbinghaus' textbook. He begins the investigation with the admission : " Scientific psychology has, unfortunately, hitherto paid too little atten- tion to the need for throwing light upon these vitally important concepts, which are placed in the foreground, by poets and imaginative writers who probe the mysteries of the human disposition." 1 But even Durr does not get beyond a number of fine distinctions and general psycho- logical remarks. He did not go into the question of the development of love. Although his admirable earnestness in the pursuit of truth led him to undertake the study of the unconscious, his premature death deprived him of the oppor- tunity of using the treasures that lie open for the taking, in the construction of a psychology closely connected with life.3 1 Grundziige der Psychologic von H. Ebbinghaus, fortgefiihrt von E. Durr, vol. ii, p. 347. 1 Cf. Pfister, Ernst Durr's Stellung zur Psychanalyse, " Internationale Zeitschrift fur arztliche Psychoanalyse," 1912, vol. i. 74 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS 32. Storring. In the year 1916, Gustav Storring published a Psychologic des menschlichen Gefiihlslebens. Although I do not dissent from what he writes anent the feelings, I consider his book chiefly notable as evidence how poverty-stricken is our psy- chology. He tells us hardly anything concerning the primary determinants and the biological evolution of feeling. To love he alludes in passing merely, making trite observations as if love were a matter of no moment. Sexuality is ignored, this implying that it plays no part among the feelings, or that we know nothing about it. Furthermore, St wring's outlook is essentially that of the alienist. His psychology reminds me of the anthropology taught in high schools, which used to tread delicately as it skirted the topic of the procreative act, in the hope that no one would notice how human beings, like dolls in a toy shop, had been robbed of their sexual organs. This is a strange way of discussing " the human life of feeling." 33. Michelet (1798-1874). Some psychological monographs treat of love as if it were purely a matter of sexual relationships. Michelet, indeed, is especially concerned with moral considerations. His book 1 ought really to be named " Moral Enfranchisement through genuine Love " (p. 1). In this respect, Michelet worked on the lines I am following. But whereas I consider that a thorough knowledge of love is essential for this study, Michelet assumes the psychology of love to be familiar to everyone, and is content with moral reflections-although he records a number of fine psychological observations and deals with the phenomena of natural history (p. 12). He makes no attempt to attain to an ontogenetic outlook, and for this reason the majority of the problems of love, and the most burning of these problems, are never discussed. 34. Duboc (1829-1903). Julius Duboc attempts to treat the feeling of love as a natural phenomenon.2 But we have frequent occasion to 1 Michelet, L'amour, fifth edition, 1861. » Duboc, Die Psychologic der Liebe, p. 2. HISTORY OF PROBLEM OF LOVE 75 note that he was by no means careful in his dealings with facts. He tells us that since the days of the first forefather of mankind [a problematical being] the kiss has been the general love symbol of sexual sensation (p. 6)-an assertion which is far from being confirmed by anthropological study. Nevertheless, Duboc tries to discuss the matter from the evolutionary standpoint. He distinguishes three phases of the amatory life : (1) The intimate taking of a person as an object of the utmost pleasure and desire. " If this stage of the primitive love feeling were describable in words, the description would run somewhat as follows : ' He (this real or imaginary person, man or woman) is my ideal; the sight of him intoxicates my senses and stirs my heart ; something unspeakable draws me towards him ; I long to be by his side ' " (pp. 9 et seq.). (2) Here also we wish to present ourselves to our ideal in the most pleasing light possible, that thereby we may attain to the most intimate contact with him, may raise ourselves to his level. Herein self-love is likely to play a predominant part (p. 14). (3) The third stage of love is attained when the ego is felt to possess absolutely no value as compared with the other's personality, and when the individual lives and breathes through the beloved alone (p. 19). In all this there is no word of biological evolution. There is nothing more than an abstract systematisation, describing states that are only met with when a high stage of evolution has been reached. The author's remarks concerning the limits of love, and concerning Don Juanism, friendship, and society, in their relationships to love, though they contain many ideas that are both beautiful and useful, do nothing to quench the thirst for knowledge that has been awakened in us during our quest. Of course the other sciences have from time to time envisaged the problem of love, for love thrusts its tentacles into all the relationships of life. Above all, the physicians during that great era when man was conceived, not as a mere heap of cells, but as a living unity of body and soul, uttered many sage words concerning love, words incor- 35. The other Sciences. 76 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS porating a profound knowledge of the human spirit. But we are in search of a developed doctrine, and cannot be satisfied with isolated remarks, however brilliant. Of late years, physicians have made strenuous efforts to increase our knowledge of love, attacking the problem from two different sides. The sexologists, and in especial Auguste Forel and Iwan Bloch, have contributed much valuable material, but have never reached a unified psychological outlook. However, one school of neurologists has, with un- precedented boldness and perspicacity, been able to probe the mystery of love, and to that school we are indebted for the key of a new method without which, in my opinion, a truly scientific knowledge of love is unattainable. This method will be described later, for it will serve us as axe, saw, and gill when we are cutting our road through the primeval forest of the problem of love. ' The anthropologists and ethnologists have given us ex- tremely important information, but they shrink back in alarm from the contemplation of the unconscious abysses of the mind, and deal with masses rather than with individuals. Nevertheless we shall pay due heed to their acquisitions. Pornography, too, has unfortunately attempted to estab- lish its rule over the domain of love. Experts assure me that it has not merely mastered the cheapjack art of arousing lascivious expectations in persons suffering from sexual hyper- excitability, but has also spread its nets for excellent and serious-minded persons in urgent need of information con- cerning matters as to which it is so important to the common weal that sound knowledge should prevail. The porno- grapher lies in wait for those whom a false shame keeps from applying to the genuine expert. The most forcible and the profoundest utterances con- cerning love have been those of the poets ; but these utter- ances contain a large admixture of error, thanks to the poets' use of a mysterious faculty of inward contemplation peculiar to themselves and denied to ordinary mortals. If we are to attain definite and verifiable results, we cannot entrust our- selves to the pinions of genius. We shall have laboriously and steadfastly to climb our way upward along a steep and difficult path. CHAPTER TWO THE GOAL OF THE INVESTIGATION i. The Concept of Love. Our study of the history of the love problem has confirmed Ibsen's saying : " Never before was a word so full of false- hood and fraud, as the little word ' love ' has become to-day." Confusion prevails in the psychological conception of love no less than in the valuation of love. To avoid increasing this confusion, we need a concise and clear definition of the term. If necessary, we can correct our definition later. We have seen that some (the Romans, Locke, Hegel) have discerned the essence of love in the intellect ; that some (Akhenaton, Buddha, the mystics, Leibnitz, Kant) have discerned it in the emotions ; and that some (Plato, Jesus, the early Christians, Thomas Aquinas, the Reformers, Des- cartes, Schleiermacher, Teichmuller, Nietzsche) have dis- cerned it in the will. Let us, however, recall the fact that, in every mental process, the intellect, the emotions, and the will all participate, though one of the three predominates. Consequently, there is no absolute distinction between these three outlooks on love. To-day, we cannot doubt that the origin of love is to be sought in the impulsive life. It has come to be recognised more and more clearly that the dominant element in love is not (as in sympathy) a passive and quiescent state, but an active endeavour. The term inclination, likewise, gives expression to this idea. We shall therefore define love as follows : Love is a feeling of attraction and a sense of self-surrender, arising out of a need, and directed towards an object that offers hope of gratification. 77 78 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS This definition is so framed as to express the fact that the object of our study is love in the psychological sense of the term, regardless of metaphysics. Psychologically, we cast our net as widely as possible, so as to include, not only sexual love, but also parental and filial affection, and the love of God as well as the love of man. Occasionally, too, we shall have to speak of the love of material goods, the love of various forms of activity, and so on. 2. Close Contact with Life. This enormously comprehensive topic will not be approached with the interests that animate the psychologists of the schools. We shall not trouble ourselves with defini- tions unless it is absolutely necessary; and we shall, as far as possible, avoid philosophical speculations. Our aim will rather be to remain as true to life as possible, and to acquire a knowledge that will help us in the intelligent guidance of love. Of course we shall not be able to dispense entirely with definitions and theories ; but we may hope to shun the original sin of contemporary psychology, which avails itself of these aids, it would seem, in order to avoid having to consider the most vitally essential problems of the mind. Since love is not something passive and quiescent, but is always an active process, our main subjects of study must be the evolutionary developments of the amatory life, and it will be our duty to include a study of its aberrations. We shall have to examine an enormous number of phenomena that have hitherto been ignored by science, and to ascertain their place in the spiritual economy ; to make ourselves acquainted with the varieties and the causes, the driving forces, of the aberrations ; to throw light upon the con- nexion between the love impulses and the rest of the psychical life ; and to discover the most desirable development of normal love and the best way of rectifying abnormal love. We shall thus be able to contribute to the education of love and to its restoration to health ; and we shall be able, like- wise, to throw light upon the psychology of the erotic life, though we shall not ourselves undertake the formulation of such a psychology. THE GOAL OF THE INVESTIGATION 79 3. Limitation to the Author's personal Observations. In all my investigations I start from the facts, and draw the necessary conclusions; but these, in turn, help to an understanding of the links between the various phenomena. I limit myself to the data of personal observation, and am not concerned in this book with the discoveries of others, although, I need hardly say, I am guided by such discoveries, and above all by the work of Sigmund Freud. This limitation to my own observations entails various inconveniences. I do not think of a more arduous responsibility, for my respon- sibility would in fact be greater had I to base my arguments upon data taken on trust from others. The trouble is the restriction of my investigation by the fact that my materials, although they are the outcome of hard work pursued for many years, are still far from being sufficiently comprehensive. More especially I have been unable to study little children and old people as closely as I could have wished. Never- theless I hope that, thanks to the hundreds of cases I have had under observation, and thanks still more to the method of study, I may have been able to contribute my quota towards the relief of suffering humanity. 4. Theoretical and practical Aim We are, therefore, not concerned with purely academic questions. (I wish, indeed, they were academic in the sense that our universities were interested in them !) The outset of the investigation has been the observation of the facts of practical experience. For in this field of study, the observer cannot provide objects at will. The most he can do is, from an abundant practice, to select cases that have a bearing on this problem. There are, in fact, no cases of disorder of the mental life which are not adapted to help us in some way towards an understanding of the phenomena of love. The uninformed may be inclined to object that the cases I describe are fanciful, that they have been touched up, that they are the work of a romancer. My only answer to such chatter can be to point out that everyone who has gone deeply into the study of the human amatory life, the most obscure department of experience, has encountered similar pheno- 80 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS mena. Life offers more remarkable plots, incidents, compli- cations, creative constructions, than any imagination can produce. No writer of fiction can rival the Absolute Spirit, the World Spirit, God-it matters not what name we give to this supreme, formative power-in the creation of strange and unexpected, boundlessly manifold and stupendous, spiritual developments. I must insist, too, in this initial stage, that my records are greatly compressed, and that I am able to reproduce no more than a small fraction of the facts that have come under my observation. All my examples have been greatly abbreviated. The simplest life history of a mind is an unfathomably rich and complicated drama con- nected by a million threads with the environing world, and equipped with millions upon millions of creative germs peculiar to itself. What needs excuse and explanation is not the multiplicity but the poverty of my records. The fruit of our work is to be something more than an increase in psychological knowledge concerning a scandal- ously neglected but supremely important province of mental life. The chief aim is to acquire accurate knowledge of the formative forces, inner as well as outer, so that we may win to a better understanding of the significance of the influence each one of us exercises over the mental life of his fellows. We are too prone to educate without surveying the conse- quences of our activities. Continually, in our educational work, we adopt harmful measures, and thus force our pupils into aberrant paths. We grope in the dark when we are attempting to lead the strayed sheep back into the right road. We increase their distresses instead of relieving them. Nothing but a far more intimate knowledge of human nature can open our eyes, can enable us to prevent mistakes, and to correct them when they have been made. We shall learn that it is possible, with the aid of new methods, to restore freedom and joy, health and strength, to numberless persons whom earlier methods would have left hopeless in an exist- ence that had become cramped and morbid. This practical side of the problem of love is fully as important as the theoretical. CHAPTER THREE METHODS i. Inadequacy of the earlier Methods. The lamentable failure of psychology to elucidate the prob- lem of love is to be explained by the general position the science has hitherto occupied. Two fundamental defects have prevented it from thriving in its attempts to investi- gate the higher mental life. First of all, it simply transferred to the study of the mind the methods employed in the natural sciences, and in the second place it confined its attention to the phenomena of consciousness. This was not the way to do justice to the peculiarities of the psyche. For the creative elements characteristic of the mind cannot be dealt with by the measuring methods proper to natural science, and the higher mental activities cannot be called up to order for experimental purposes like physical and chemical processes.1 Moreover, it is continually growing plainer that a large proportion of the mental life goes on outside the range of consciousness. Our feelings, the course of our ideas, and all the stirrings of our impulses, are dependent upon disposition. Nor is this all. We can demonstrate with absolute certainty that mental creation, imaginative work, and the formation of plans, go on outside the domain of consciousness, and that the results of these unconscious pro- cesses ultimately influence our conscious life in manifold ways. That which the great poets have always known and have declared with the utmost confidence, and that which the German psychology of the schools has obstinately denied under the influence of naturalism and positivism, is now 1 The notion of experimental psychology was originally far less narrow and far less remote from life than it is to-day. Cf. Kruger, Versuch einer Experimental-Seelenlehre, 1756; Moritz, Aussichten zu einer Experi- mentalseelenlehre, 1782. 81 82 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS known to be an incontestable fact. Among all nations, with the remarkable exception of the Germans, the need has been recognised of admitting the reality of unconscious mental activity. James regarded this discovery as the most impor- tant step forward that had occurred in psychology, since he had been a student of that science.1 But in Germany, Switzerland, and elsewhere, there are still countless profes- sional psychologists who sedulously close their eyes to the phenomena of unconscious mental activity, and are furious in their anger with all persons who venture to study the newly discovered phenomena. 2. The Study of the creative Unconscious. The alienists followed in the footsteps of the poets in the discovery of unconscious motives for enigmatic actions. Certain patients exhibited bodily symptoms or performed actions for which they were unable to furnish plausible reasons even after thinking the matter over with the utmost care. But when these patients were hypnotised, adequate motives were easy to find. The experimenter learned of painful experiences which were reflected in the enigmatic actions. It was plain that the symptoms represented the patients' ineffective attempts to ward off such painful experiences. 3. Freud's Discovery of Psychoanalysis. Sigmund Freud, the Viennese neurologist, extended the application of these discoveries to normal persons. If we were to sum up Freud's life-work in a phrase, we should say that his services to psychology were closely akin to those which Champoilion rendered to Egyptology, for Freud has taught us how to decipher the hieroglyphs in which the un- conscious speaks to us. The key to the secret writing of the unconscious was named by him the psychoanalytic method. It aims at revealing the unconscious foundation of our mental life, at the disclosure of the hidden psychical powers upon which all our thinking and feeling and willing are dependent-not only our congenital and acquired disposi- tions, but also the individual impulsive energies and uncon- 1 James, Varieties of religious Experience, 1902, p. 233. METHODS 83 scious motives which are often the real determinants hidden in the background behind the motives of which we are aware as the cause of our ideas and feelings and voluntary actions. For Freud, the unconscious is no longer the night in which all cats are black; it is the world behind the scenes and beneath the flooring of consciousness. Psychologists had analysed the consciousness before Freud. But they were in much the same position as a botanist who should study all the parts of plants that wrere above ground while completely ignoring the roots ; or as a scientist who should study the phenomena of the sea while leaving out of account all that went on beneath the surface of the waves ; or as a physician who should be unable to examine anything that was in progress beneath the surface of the body. Traditional psychology, which is still dominant at the German universities, is in no better case. Need we be surprised that the practical acquisitions of this science have been almost nil; that the doctors, teachers, and pastors who turn to it for help, should turn in vain, and should abandon it in bitter disillusionment ? 1 Psychoanalysis begins its work at the point where the analysis of conscious- ness is arrested. Prior to the discoveries of Freud, observers were utterly at a loss in face of the confused dreams, caprices, irresistible impulses, inhibitions of feeling, restrictions of thought, whims, and a thousand other processes, which perhaps threw an evil spell over a whole life. With the aid of the psycho- analytic method, these can be interpreted ; their secret signi- ficance can be unveiled. We learn what they are intended to express ; we discover their hidden aims. We see, more- over, what accessory purposes they pursue, and how they are related to the life as a whole. For instance, underlying many morbid manifestations is the secret and unconscious purpose of securing certain advantages, winning tenderness, evading work, etc. Many a waking fantasy gives expression in fictional form to the day-dreamer's intention to restrict to the realm of imagination the performance of his life's tasks, while shunning these tasks in the realm of reality. Furthermore, psychoanalytical investigation has among the 1 Cf. Bleuler, Schweizer Archiv fttr Neurologic und Psychiatric," vol. ii, p, 192. 84 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS most important of its functions that of discovering the origin of these unconscious impulses and obsessions. In this respect it is a historico-critical method. 4. Theoretical and practical Tasks of Psychoanalysis. The functions hitherto named belong to the sphere of theory, but they all have practical importance. It was through its bearing upon practical needs and experience that psychoanalysis acquired its place in the field of reality. The psychoanalyst may be compared to a diver who has descended into the depths for the purposes of study. But often this diver has to bring sunken treasure to the surface, to detach an anchor chain, to lay explosives that will remove submerged obstacles. In like manner the analyst has to bring submerged mental energies into the light of day ; to render again accessible to consciousness the spiritual powers that have been repressed into the un- conscious ; to break the chains that stretch into the conscious from the realm of the unconscious, and that inhibit con- sciousness or direct it into false paths-thus restoring freedom to the mind. " Release " is the word which most succinctly expresses the aim of psychoanalysis ; release from unconscious influences, or from influences proceeding from the unconscious, which impair the normal activities. When it is incumbent upon us to study and to influence love, we shall turn to psychoanalysis for aid as soon as the study of the conscious life leaves us at fault. The method discovered by Freud will be employed, wherever possible, to throw light upon the hidden forces of the amatory life. For instance, where we are concerned with strange and enigmatic manifestations, it will disclose their impulsive roots, will reveal the secret meaning of that which seems to be unmeaning-for we are certainly entitled to look for the meaning of mental phenomena. Psychoanalysis must furnish us with an explanation of these strange happenings ; it will elucidate their determinism, reveal the materials of which they are composed, tell us what remoter experiences were contributory, how the individual reacted to these experi- ences, and so on. By these means, we shall be enabled to unravel the problems of the why and wherefore of the METHODS 85 amatory life far more effectively than is possible with the aid of the psychology that limits its attention to the sphere of consciousness. Such investigations enable us to exercise a far more effective influence upon the guidance of mental life. With our consciousness we were incompetent to control the submerged forces of the mind. We were in the position of a shepherd who on a misty night hears a strayed lamb bleating ; he wants to come to the creature's help, but with his best endeavours is unable to find the way. The lamb answers his call, but the shepherd's sense of direction is confused by echoes, and he is separated from the object of his search by barriers of rock. When day has dawned, he can see the path by which the lamb has mounted, can follow the strayed animal and bring it home. This simile is applicable in various ways. It shows how, when we have to deal with impulses prisoned in the unconscious, in default of psycho- analysis we wander vainly through the misty night, and are apt to waste our energies where they are of no avail. The real seat of the mischief is in a very different place from that which the simple psychology of consciousness would fain disclose. But the simile of the strayed lamb is less happy in another respect, which I can only briefly outline here. If we wish to effect the release of an aberrant impulse that is prisoned in the unconscious, in all difficult cases we shall find it necessary to lead this impulse back by the very path along which it strayed. The shepherd will very likely bring back the lamb by a different route from that along which the beast climbed ; perhaps he will carry it down a ladder, or lower it by a rope. An impulse vigorously controlled from the unconscious can, however, as experience shows, in most instances be effectually released only by showing it the nature of the determinism by which it got into its present pass, although there were paths open that might have seemed far more suitable. Mephistopheles' saying in Faust that it is a law of the spirits that they can only attain freedom along the road by which they entered prison, is the expression of a profound psychological truth. There was once a community which had got into terrible difficulties owing to dissensions among its citizens, and was therefore threatened with destruction. The official leaders 86 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS of the community were faced with an opposition which defied all the rules of order and made a tolerable communal life impossible. Although the members of the opposition had no good arguments, they had great influence, which they used in a way injurious to the community-at-large. The president endeavoured to secure harmony, but his benevolent appeal to the goodwill of the citizens was unavailing. An attempt to enforce rationally conceived measures was frus- trated by the stubbornness of the opposition. Then another member of the government took action. Without proposing any immediate changes, he quietly talked things over with the reactionaries who formed the opposition, listening care- fully to their wishes and their claims, endeavouring in con- junction with them to ascertain the historical determinants of the dispute, and thus throwing a perfectly clear light upon a situation that had hitherto been shrouded in dark- ness. Only then did he suggest negotiations between the disputants. He carefully avoided any attempt at the forcible carrying out of the program that commended itself to his superior intelligence. Not until the historical sifting process had been concluded, not until all had been made fully aware of the secret motives that were really operative, did he set his influence to work ; and even then he did so only in so far as the disputants were themselves now able to recognise the extent to which they could make concessions. The result was that what force regardless of the claims of the members of the opposition had vainly endeavoured to effect, was achieved by the method that had elucidated the true impulses to action. The refractory members of the community were transformed into useful citizens who shared in constructive work. Need I interpret the parable ? The bearing of the com- parison of the unconscious opposing forces to a political opposition whose obstructive tactics are the outcome rather of obscure impulses than of clear insight, will certainly be obvious. The well-meaning president who appeals to reason, is the pedagogy which is concerned only with the conscious and ignores the titanic powers of imponderabilia and the unconscious. But the psychoanalyst penetrates to the real impulsive forces lying beneath the threshold of conscious- ness ; he draws them into consciousness, so that the struggle METHODS 87 can be carried on in the daylight instead of in the dark. Our subsequent researches will show that this is indis- pensable. But how shall we succeed in bringing light into the underworld of the unconscious ? Shall we not find our- selves in the position of Demeter, whose daughter Persephone had been carried off by Hades into his subterranean abode, so that the earth produced no fruits ? Must we, likewise, wander to and fro mournfully without being able to find our way to the kidnapped benefactress of life ? Fortunately not. It is not possible to show here how Freud discovered the way into this underworld ; we have space merely to deal with the results. The investigator starts from individual manifestations in which the unconscious expresses itself figuratively-dreams for instance. He closely scrutinises the individual parts of the dreams, the actual matter of the analysis, and elicits the impressions which arise in this connexion in the unconscious of the person undergoing analysis (the " analysand "). In this way he may learn, for example, that an unknown face which has appeared in a dream may plainly exhibit the lineaments of two distinct faces ; or he may encounter some circumstance or other, which suddenly solves the riddle of the dream. I cannot show here the psychological laws that are involved. The fundamental rule is that a good interpretation brings the image subjected to analysis and the impressions evoked by its contemplation into the simplest possible significant relationship, and one suitable to the extant circumstances of the person concerned. If the objection be raised that a false interpretation may be made, the fact must be admitted. But what method is there which cannot be wrongly applied ? Nevertheless, I think the danger of false interpretations is less conspicuous in psychoanalysis than in forming judgments of historical personalities, or the paintings or writings of old masters ; these also have to be interpreted, and can in many cases be successfully interpreted. Now the psychoanalyst can find first-hand material with which to correct, confirm, and if need be expand, his interpretations; a possibility which is not open to the historian or the connoisseur of art or literature. Of course, in psychoanalysis no less than in other fields of study, practice makes perfect. We need not 88 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS be surprised that tyros are apt to go astray in their attempts to use the psychoanalytic method. 5. Limitations of the Concept of Psychoanalysis. A word is now requisite concerning the limitations of the concept " psychoanalysis." The reader must realise clearly that we are concerned only with a method whose aims and instruments have been explained. But in a wider sense the term is employed to denote certain data that can be acquired by the use of this method. A careful distinction should be made between the two uses of the word. Much confusion arises from the way in which the respective meanings are often intertangled by the opponents of psychoanalysis. For example, we may approve the Freudian method without accepting all the sexual theory or all the metapsychology that Freud has himself based upon the use of this method. But the critics are foolish in the way they begin their criticism with an attack upon these secondary acquisitions (many of which are advanced by Freud merely as hypotheses), instead of dealing with the facts of the case. What should we think of a critic who should pass judgment upon the value of modern chemistry and physics in virtue of his opinion con- cerning the latest accessory hypotheses that have been formulated in these sciences (such as the concepts of atoms, molecules, electrons, and the like), while ignoring the tech- nical achievements of these disciplines, and disregarding the natural processes upon which the before-mentioned logical constructions have been built up. Yet the opponents and critics of psychoanalysis have, for two decades and more, been content with this scholastic method of attack. Those, on the other hand, who, taking a serious view of their duty as critics, devoted themselves primarily to a study of the facts, have for the most part become supporters of psycho- analysis. 6. Psychoanalysis is the Study of Unconscious Mentation. Freud's analytical method is not contrasted with or opposed to the traditional method of psychological analysis. It begins its extremely difficult and profoundly important METHODS 89 task at the point where the progress of the traditional method has been arrested. It applies its analysis to the unconscious. Most of the persons whom I subject to examination are those who apply for psychoanalytical treatment owing to some form of mental distress. Many had certainly to be described as sick persons, and in these cases I would only undertake the treatment in cooperation with the patient's medical adviser. Many of them were not ill in the medical sense of the term, but they suffered morally in one way or another from the existence of something which they had repressed into aberrant paths. Some of my subjects, how- ever, have been perfectly normal persons. Those with conservative inclinations are likely to be out- raged at anyone's daring to avail himself of invalids in order to gain a better understanding of the nature of love. But the reader should bear in mind that the psychology of child- hood has been entirely created by the doctors ! No physio- logist would to-day dispense with turning pathological instances to due account. It is only the psychologists of contemporary Germany, and to some extent of contemporary Switzerland (who are animated to an almost inconceivable degree with a dread of facts and with an inclination to shun their most important duties), who reject psychopathology with the most fervent moral indignation. But psychoanalysis is indebted to its origin in neurological practice for this, that it escaped the customary flight from the realities of life into a realm remote from life, and avoided the would-be scientific but really far from adequately refined ' methods of the psychological laboratory.1 There is really no ground for criticising the procedure of an investigator who chooses, with eyes widely opened to the world, to con- template his fellows and to study the actual lines of evolution. 1 Ordinary psychological experiment, despite its claim to be rigidly scientific, is really defective in that it cannot fulfil the postulate of isolation. The physicist and the chemist insist upon the strict isolation of the processes they are observing, in order to avoid the interference of uncontrollable influences from without. Psychology cannot comply with this demand, for the influence of the unconscious cannot be excluded. Now that the experimental psychologists, such as Narzissus Ach, Kurt Koffka, and others, have at length come to recognise the existence of the '' determining tendencies " with which psychoanalysts have long been familiar, the members of these circles ought to have learned to form a more modest estimate of the value of their experiments, which give so very little result for such an enormous expenditure of labour. 90 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS It is surely not an offence against science that a psycho- analyst should often devote months or even years to the careful study of one of his subjects, should trace the origin of this subject's aberrations, and should study the methods of a return to the normal (which is also effected in accordance with definite laws). Of course a mere bookworm, one who is enmeshed in definitions and hypotheses, one who is cut off from the realities of the mind by his own inhibitions, will never be able to practice psychoanalysis. But such a person will likewise be unable to say anything worth listening to about love. I can write no more, here, concerning methods. I hope that the foregoing paragraphs will make this study compre- hensible. The reader in search of more precise details may turn to Freud's Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, or to those of my own writings that have already been men- tioned. CHAPTER FOUR THE SCOPE OF OUR STUDY 1. An organic Outlook. It is far from easy to arrange the vast amount of material in such a way that all reasonable claims shall be duly con- sidered. For the reasons already given, we cannot concern ourselves with the distinctions that might be based upon the history of the problem of love. We have decided from the outset to restrict ourselves to the data of personal obser- vation. These must not be arbitrarily detached one from another so as to make them incomprehensible in their isola- tion. If we trace the course of an individual development that is presented to us more or less in isolation, we shall wander through all possible domains of the amatory life, through all possible phases and trends of evolution. If, for special consideration, we detach isolated stages or constant forms, these, again, can only be rightly grasped within the framework of the amatory life as a whole. It is impossible to detach love from the general life of the individual and to regard it as a world of its own. Love does not exist per se ; there is no isolated capacity for love, any more than there can be a sexual life per se. That is why I lay so much stress upon an organic outlook. I mean by this that every mental function must be contemplated in its relationship to the whole organism of the mind.1 It is not permissible to return, as people so often return, to the V er mogensfisychologie (faculty psychology) which was given its quietus by Herbart. Only in the conceptual world, not in the world of reality, can love be isolated. We can distinguish it, but we cannot detach it, from the economy of the mind as a whole, for the whole mind is at work in all mental activities. 1 Pfister, Was bietet die Psychanalyse dem Erzieher ? p. 31. 91 92 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS We see, then, that we have to demonstrate the develop- mental connexions of love. On the other hand, we are in search of general propositions and theories. We shall only be successful if we juxtapose things that are similar, and define them with all possible precision by abstraction. 2. What we understand by Childhood. The following treatment of the topic will best enable us to fulfil our postulates. First of all, we shall study the age of childhood in the widest sense of that term, including the period of puberal development. Were we writing a psy- chology of love, in this case also we should have to undertake careful investigations of evolutionary stages. But for our purposes this will be superfluous, seeing that for us it is far more important to consider the subject in its interconnexions. 3. Direct and indirect Observation of Love in Children. But the forms of love in children cannot be elucidated solely by the direct observation of the child. For this to be possible, it would be necessary that we should be able to study children far more efficiently than heretofore. Suffice it to note how hopelessly inadequate are the best obser- vations hitherto made, those of William and Clara Stern, as far as love is concerned.1 Undeniably, far more careful observations might be made than those of these meritorious parents. We have to recognise that direct observations of children with the aid of the psychoanalytic method are far more fruitful than those made by the light of the old psycho- logy, affected as it is by the canker of intellectualism. But the direct or almost direct investigations of a Freud, a Ferenczi, or a Hermine Hug-Hellmuth, would not have been possible unless the way had been prepared by observations upon adults. Just as the embryonic beginnings of an organ can only be understood by those who know the finished product of development, so the nature of childish impulses is hardly comprehensible except to those who have studied impulses in adults. For this reason, the direct and the in- 1 Stern, Psychologic der friihen Kindheit. THE SCOPE OF OUR STUDY 93 direct observation of children must supplement one another in the study of child psychology. I shall, therefore, utilise, in addition to the data furnished by my own study of children, much that has been derived from the trustworthy reports of adults and from inferences drawn from these reports, in so far as such material is helpful to the understanding of love in children. On the other hand, I shall omit a good deal (or shall treat very briefly) much whose significance can only be made plain by the study of adults. That is why, for example, I shall say less about sexual manifestations in children than the importance of the subject might seem to demand. Speaking generally, the aptest utilisation of the cases will be determined by their most characteristic traits. Wherever necessary, cases will receive partial treatment under separate heads, the connexions being indicated by cross references. In a later volume, which will be devoted to the normal manifestations and the aberrations of adult life, I shall be mainly concerned with discussing sexual love, on the one hand, and love for God and man on the other. (Psycho- logically, it might be better in the latter case to speak of " man and God." I may take this opportunity of pointing out that such love is far more intimately connected with love in children than psychoanalysts have hitherto recognised, and that its roots stretch back into the age of infancy.) Obviously, we cannot rest content with allowing the manifestations to present themselves in a purely objective manner, like the current of events on a cinematographic screen. We shall persistently endeavour to elucidate causes. We shall search out alike the internal and the external for- mative forces, and shall do so both in the case of normal and in that of abnormal love. We should lay ourselves open to the charge of one- sidedness if we were merely to describe how, in the course of life, the normal and the aberrant manifestations of love come into being. We are greatly concerned to know what influences-be they termed educational, religious, spiritually orthopaedic, or what you will-can be utilised for the pur- 4. Limits of the Investigation. 94 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS posive modification of love. It will therefore be essential to consider the education and the psychical management in cases of normal and abnormal love. I have not attempted a complete solution of hitherto unsolved scientific problems. My aim has merely been to expound facts and well-established explanations. Those who may then feel impelled to set out upon a scientific voyage through the kingdom opened to explorers by Sigmund Freud, will find plenty of guidance. Sciolists who regard the vast apparatus of the old psychology as comprising positively ascertained science will carp at my theoretical reserves. But those who approach the subject as impartial investigators will, I hope, recognise that I have taken a serious view of the theoretical aspects of my task. For the rest, I may refer to my purely scientific works upon psychoanalysis and philosophy. I have been tempted to refer to those joyous singing and laughing splendours that adorn the fairyland of childhood. Bright eyes, smiling lips, glad hearts, arms stretched wide in expectation, little legs dancing with glee, all radiant in the spring light of love, which is the most charming and sublime, the sweetest and the holiest thing in heaven or on earth-these and similar marvels were the objects I would gladly have studied. But I know that my task imposes certain renouncements. Perhaps I shall lay myself open to the charge of aridity and coldness because I have decided upon a self-restraint with- out which the comprehension of difficult matters becomes impossible. Love itself imposes upon us a sober attitude towards love. When we contemplate love in children, we are not looking into a charming and tranquil garden, but into a world that often arouses horror, pity, and even disgust. Here I am thinking not only of the victims of rough, un- loving, and stupid teachers. The distressing fact is that, quite apart from such malevolent persons, there are many fathers, mothers, teachers, and other grown-ups, on a high intellectual and moral plane and animated with the best intentions towards the children for whose care they are responsible, who in countless cases bring misery upon these without even being aware of the grave errors they are com- mitting. Often enough, when it is manifest that the educa- THE SCOPE OF OUR STUDY 95 tion is going awry, such persons, still with the best will in the world, reach out for other means which cannot fail to bring about even greater intellectual or moral aberration, emotional suffering, or additional injury. This lamentable state of affairs is in large measure due to the fact that the prevailing methods of education are so greatly influenced for evil by that conventional psychology which wrongly concentrates its attention upon the domain of consciousness. Now, nowhere are the poverty and per- plexity of the old psychology so conspicuous as in the case of love. The historical investigation with which the present work opens, furnishes abundant confirmation of this statement. CHAPTER FIVE LOVE IN CHILDREN AS TREATED IN EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE 1. Primitive Folk. Down to the days of Jean Jacques Rousseau, primitive folk were regarded as cruel savages, as cannibals and devils, who ought to be exterminated in the interests of genuine humanity. Because infanticide was widely practised, it was assumed that primitives were animated by a callous love of murder. Then came the gentle period of the Enlightenment, when uncivilised peoples were idealised as the innocent and noble children of nature-those who held such views being influ- enced, not so much by the facts of savage life, as by a dislike for the artificialities of civilisation. To-day, the pendulum of opinion has swung back from this false and sentimental outlook, so that we are quite ready to admit that primitive folk sometimes have extremely unamiable characteristics. It would appear, however, that, among primitives, love plays a considerable part in the upbringing of children. At any rate, there is more affection in the relationships between parents and children than in those between man and wife, for the latter know little of mutual personal sacrifice.1 Infanticide is not the outcome of callousness, but is in most cases the effect of economic need.3 Almost universally, children are treated far more considerately than among civilised people. " Infinite love and kindness preside over the first period of the primitive child's training. Even in the lowest stages of savagery, parents are devoted to their children, and therefore permit the latter to do practically whatever they like. . . . The utmost allowance is made even for the caprices and moods of children. There is no « Schmid, Geschichte der Erziehung, vol. i, p. 39. 1 Knabenhans, Die Erziehung bei den Naturvdlkem, p. 7. 96 TREATED IN EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE 97 trace of rude coercion or arbitrary treatment. Corporal punishment is generally discountenanced, or at most is a last resort. Generally speaking, the parents are content with the mildest disciplinary measures, a glance or a word sufficing. A naughty child will be scolded, or ' sent to Coventry ' for a time, or deprived of some coveted dainty. In bad cases the threat of evil spirits will be used. Childish pranks are tolerated, and indeed regarded with complaisance. The mother, being the weaker party, is likely to suffer most from such pranks. But even the father, on these occasions, will show himself extremely affectionate, and will glow with parental pride. Despite the perpetual spoiling, the general conduct of the children is excellent-especially that of the older children. They are quiet, well-behaved, and affec- tionate ; one may say that they are markedly attentive and even unselfish towards their parents." 1 These statements were confirmed to me by an experienced missionary from Africa. The only point upon which he differed from Knabenhans was in his view that the belief in evil spirits had a great influence upon children. They are convinced that their father will become a demon after his death, and will exercise formidable powers. On the other hand, parents think that their child, should it die, could take revenge for any act of injustice. Since the children of primitive folk are extraordinarily obedient to their elders, they readily pick up the latter's accomplishments. 2. The Chinese. The Chinese sages may be said to have pushed to an extreme their demand that a living or dead father should be honoured. A pious regard for parents forms the basis of Chinese ethics. What, precisely, are we to understand by this injunction ? Confucius says : "He who for three years has not deviated from his father's will, may rightly be termed pious." He tells us that a son must be prepared to deceive, if thereby he can conceal a theft committed by his father.2 In a booklet highly commended by Chinese moralists, Four-and-twenty Instances of filial Affection, we are told that a boy heedlessly broke off a melon from its 1 Knabenhans, op. cit., pp. 23 and 24. * Wilhelm, Gesprache des Kungfutse [Confucius}, 1914, p. 141. 98 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS stalk ; thereupon his father gave the offender so violent a box on the ear that the lad fell senseless to the ground. Confucius' comment on the incident is one of blame, not for the father but for the son, seeing that " the son's action had nearly made his father commit murder." 1 In view of the servile attitude of sons, and of course of daughters also, towards the father, there was no scope for the free develop- ment of filial love. The individuality was offered no chance of a personal life in which its peculiar powers could unfold themselves harmoniously. The faculties were rigidly con- fined within the traditional mould ; the best energies were dissipated in a superabundance of formalities, in the perfor- mance of innumerable ceremonies. Among the Japanese, the veneration which their yellow brethren bestowed upon the father was transferred to the emperor. Therewith, doubtless, the opportunities for free activity are somewhat enlarged, but the individual is still so closely cribbed within the barriers of governmental and family life that a proper development of personality is in- conceivable. And among the Japanese, no less than among the Chinese, ancestor worship is the chief element in the national religion.3 Parents do their utmost to make life beautiful for their children, so that a distinguished European authority upon Japanese questions exclaims : " Japan is the paradise of children ! " 3 Nevertheless there is a strong admixture of timidity in the filial affection of the Japanese. The tie to the father is too powerful to allow for the un- folding of the best individual talents. A slightly modified version of the Chinese primer with the Four-and-twenty Instances is used for the instruction of Japanese youth, although to western minds some of the examples set up for imitation seem positively immoral-as when a man wishes to bury his son alive that he may be able to care the better for his own aged father (in the Chinese original of the tale it is the mother). Nevertheless, we can learn much con- 3. The Japanese. 1 Maier-Hugendubel, Schi-tshing, 1913, p. 36. » Cf. Florenz, Der Shintoismus der Japaner, in " Die Religionen des Orients." 3 Munzinger, Die Japaner, 1898, p. 146. TREATED IN EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE 99 cerning filial affection from the civilisations of eastern Asia. We can learn that the idolisation of the father has a cramping influence upon the mental life of children, an influence that arrests progress-unless the father, like the Japanese em- perors of late, himself incites to progress. 4. The Greeks. Among the Greeks, the development of filial affection was less stereotyped than among the Chinese and the Japa- nese. Although for the first seven years of life the children were left to the care of the mother, the father at times dis- played a tender interest in his offspring. The finest example of this is unquestionably that of Hector : " Then kissed he his dear son and dandled him in his arms, and spake in prayer to Zeus and all the gods, ' O Zeus and all ye gods, vouchsafe ye that this my son may likewise prove even as I, pre-eminent amid the Trojans, and as valiant in might, and be a great king of Ilios. Then may men say of him, " Far greater is he than his father." ' " 1 The Greek mother, who ruled within the home, had a strong influence over the trend of filial affection. Corporal punishment and threats of bogeys seem to have played too great a part in the training of children. But the young people made up for these troubles by games, which arouse our admiration both from their variety and from their wise and humorous features.3 From the seventh year onwards, education was a State concern. The boy left home and was henceforward under the tutelage of the community, which had the first claim upon him, and put him under the care of male teachers exclusively. In Sparta, the chief interest was in physical culture, for the Lacedaemonians regarded the warrior as the acme of manhood; but in Athens, mental training was regarded as no less important than bodily. There can be no doubt that the complete removal of the boys from feminine influence, together with the frequency of gymnastic exercises, had a tendency to promote the development of homosexuality. ' Homer's Iliad, Book vi, 11. 511 to 518. Quoted from Lang, Leaf, and Meyers' prose translation, Globe edition, 1914, p. 125. ' Schmid, op. cit., pp. 190 et seq. 100 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS Readers of The Republic are well aware that in his utopia Plato had no place for marriage. Up to the age of six, children of both sexes were coeducated in institutions, and consequently their love could not be directed towards the parents. No doubt the great philosopher's view was that the removal of the children from the parents would lead to a stronger development of interest in the concerns of the community. But it need hardly be said that Plato's writings, like those of other Greeks, bear no trace of precise study of the transformations of love in children. 5. The Jews. The strict monogamy of the Jews gave an intimacy to the relationships between parents and children which is rare among other peoples of antiquity. But moral earnestness is not decisive as to the intensity of love. The Mosaic commandment is that children shall honour their parents ; there is no word of love. The earliest great collection of laws, the so-called Covenant Book, compiled in the first half of the ninth century b.c. (Exodus, chapters xxi-xxiii), shows no offence at the idea that daughters should be sold into slavery (Exodus xxi, 7). Children who strike or curse father or mother are to be punished with death (Exodus xxi, 15 and 17). In Deuteronomy, discovered in the Temple during the reign of Josiah (b.c. 621), the parents of a stubborn and rebellious son, who refuses to obey them, are definitely ordered to bring him to the elders in order that he may be stoned (Deuteronomy xxi, 18-21). There is increasing evidence of a harsh spirit which cannot fail to impair children's love for their parents and for their brothers and sisters. Many of the injunctions in the Book of Proverbs give dis- agreeable expression to the educational methods of a Busby. Take, for instance : "He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes " (xiii, 24). " Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying "(xix, 18). " Correct thy son, and he shall give thee rest; yea, he shall give delight unto thy soul" (xxix, 17). Sometimes we read horrible threats, such as : " The eye that mocketh at his father and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall TREATED IN EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE 101 pick it out, and the young eagle shall eat it " (xxx, 17). We should hardly expect such a spirit in the parents to promote a healthy unfolding of filial affection. Let me take this opportunity of saying that the history of the Jews shows many points of resemblance with that of the Chinese. Among both peoples we find a forcible subjection to the father; among both we find likewise a sinister stagnation, in conjunction with a multiplicity of ardently venerated ceremonial observances. It would, however, be unjust to omit the quotation of texts that afford evidence of the existence of genuine parental love among the Jews. " Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him " (Psalms ciii, 13)-this passage indicates sincere affection. Children are invariably regarded as gifts and blessings (Psalms cxxvii, 3-5) ; they are among the good things that bring happiness (Job i, 13 et seq. ; xlii, 13). Still, we should note how much is said concerning the rebel- lion of sons against parents (cf., for instance, Proverbs xix, 26 ; xx, 20 ; xxx, 17). A similar spirit is breathed by the Judaism of later days, as we may observe especially in Ecclesiasticus. These moral severities must obviously have been exercised at the cost of much sacrifice of parents' and children's delight in one another. 6. Jesus. Love, which had been driven out by the Jews, was made by Jesus into the central sun of life. The historians of educational science have, in general, overlooked this, owing to the concentration of their interest upon ecclesiastical dogma. Fundamentally, the great, the redeeming, the spiritualising element that enters the stage of history with Jesus is a new love. The love of God, one's neighbour, and oneself-this is the essence of the matter. The utterances of Paul, the Johannine writings, and the ecclesiastical dogmatists are no more than stammering attempts to express these supreme love-experiences. Often, indeed, they afford at the same time lamentable proof that the simple but unfathomable love of Jesus was apt to be forced into devious paths by the resistances of the misguided, stubborn, and selfish nature of man Substantially, all these deviations 102 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS were of like character, being of the type we shall encounter in our study of morbid nervous phenomena. The proof of this identity will be given in the sequel. How seldom were the Christian churches willing to admit the supreme impor- tance of love ! The founder of Christianity tells us that the object of education is the child of God, whose origin, nature, and destiny give it supreme worth, and which is sustained by the holy love of God. The goal of education is con- sidered by Jesus to consist in belonging to the kingdom of God, in belonging, that is to say, to the realm where the highest and holiest aims of love will be realised in human beings and in all the mutual relationships of mankind. Whereas Judaism bows the child beneath the yoke of the parents' will, Jesus frees it from this servitude by repre- senting God as the highest and sole authoritative power. Very remarkable is the way in which, despite his approval of a filial affection manifesting itself in works of succour, he so frequently demands rebellion against parental authority in the name of obedience to the heavenly father (cf. Mark iii, 31 et seq. ; Matthew viii, 21, 22 ; x, 21 et seq. ; x, 35~37 i xix> 5 > xix> 29 > xxiii, 9)- But in these injunc- tions, God is not a mere wielder of authority, or one whose nature is fundamentally different from that of man ; he is the father whose commands are issued solely for the welfare of the child. Thus filial love is likewise brought under the sway of the moral ideal, and its direction and degree are to be determined solely in accordance with that ideal. We shall see that only through such an organisation can love in children attain true freedom, beauty, and power. Of course the nature of Christian education can be expressed in different formulas. Owing to the scope of our investigation, all of these are comprised within the limits of our understanding, including faith in deliverance from sin (Schumann), or " the education of the human being to become a citizen of the kingdom which is not of this world." 1 7. The Johannine and Pauline Literature. The Johannine and Pauline literature lays considerable stress upon the activity of love, but its interest tends to lapse 1 Schmid, op. cit., vol. ii, § i, p. 19. TREATED IN EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE 103 upon the doctrinal, though without being completely absorbed thereby. Beyond question, the activity of love, including the manifestation of love in children, is one of the finest fruits of the Christian tree ; and yet, in the pedagogical literature of the early Christians there is much less encouragement of the sympathetic impulses than might have been expected from intelligent imitators of Christ. This failure is to be ascribed to the historical determinisms whereby the free activities of love were forced into the devious paths of intellectualist coercion (orthodoxy) and symbolical obsession (ceremonialism, the sacraments). I shall show later that the development was psychologically inevitable. 8. Augustine and other Fathers of the Church. The best contributions of the patristic age in respect of the education of love in children are not to be found in writings expressly devoted to educational topics, but in biography. Augustine's Confessions have been justly named a hymn of thanks to maternal love.1 The adjuration to Monica, " It is impossible that a son of such tears should be lost " {Confessions, Book ii, Chapter 12), has been a support for countless weak and afflicted spirits ; and many a mother who, like that splendid sufferer, has been deceived by her son (Book v, Chapter 8), has continued to hope, as did Monica, for the resumption of that intimate and affectionate spiritual community with the son which would make the close of life a triumph of love (Book ix, Chapters 8 to 13). Some of the other fathers of the church, such as Chryso- stome, Gregory of Nazanzius, and Basil, have fine things to say about maternal love, but do not exhibit profound knowledge of its psychological and educational aspects. The most beautiful of such utterances was certainly that of Augustine : " When, in an ill humour, we have to address ourselves to the irksome repetition of commonplace things, let us guide ourselves by the example of the first Christians in the love of a brother, a father, or a mother ; everything will seem fresh to us if we can establish such a bond between us and their hearts." 3 * Schmid, op. cit., vol. ii, § i, p. 22. » De rudibus catechizandis. 104 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS 9. The Middle Ages. The educationists of the middle ages were unable to recognise the importance of love in children. Although among the teachers of that day, both men and women, there was certainly no lack of affectionate persons, their authorita- tive outlook and their fundamental hostility to worldly things were unfavourable to the encouragement of intimate love in children's hearts. The sanctity under whose pinions education was carried on, had harsh and grave lineaments which reflected the horror of sin and hell, but did not, alas, exhibit the gracious smile of love. Even St. Elizabeth regarded the giving of love to children as a theft from God of the love due to him, and therefore as sinful. The cruelty of the punishments of those days shows clearly how sinister was the spirit of the teachers. When we are told that Erasmus Alberus, as an eight year old boy, was dragged about by the feet by his schoolmaster as if he had been a plough, when he was forced to climb up a pole which was then loosed, or when the screaming child was hung up in a sack outside the window, we learn of measures symptomatic of brutality. 10. The Reformers. The Reformers, Luther and Calvin at any rate, suffered from the severity of their education. Luther was once so unmercifully flogged by his father that he ran away, and was filled with hatred until time had healed his wounds. Just because of a nut, his mother cuffed him until he bled. Calvin's parents were so strict that they held the opinion that they ought to show no affection for their children ; we are not surprised to learn that as a boy Calvin suffered much from headache. Zwingli was spared such harsh measures, and was kindly treated both by his parents and by the philanthropically minded uncle to whom he was entrusted for education at an early age-though even he did not escape the severities of moral training.1 The consequence of this kindlier treatment was that he excelled all the other reformers in his affection for the poor,3 and for serfs.3 But even 1 Staehelin, Zwingli, vol. i, p. 25. 1 Op. cit., vol. ii, p. 139. J Op. cit., vol. i, p. 499. TREATED IN EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE 105 Zwingli, in the fine work on education dedicated to his step- son, refers to love in children in general terms only as a form of Christian love for one's neighbour and of filial reverence. 11. The Jesuits. The Jesuits had little interest in love for parents and for brothers and sisters ; such love was only to be given a place in prayer. Nor did they think that relations of close intimacy among their pupils were to be encouraged.1 12. Montaigne (1533-1592). Montaigne was likewise opposed to the natural feeling of love, which tended to make even the wisest too sensitive and considerate, and therefore was apt to spoil children. For this reason, he accepted " the generally received view " that it was not a good thing to rear a child in the bosom of the family 13. Orthodox Protestantism. Everyone knows that Protestant orthodoxy sent a scorching wind blowing athwart human relationships. All our feelings were to be concentrated upon God and the here- after. Earthly life became anaemic and impoverished ; it was a severe military service in this vale of tears. Love in children, therefore, was likewise in poor case. 14. Comenius (1592-1671). It is from Amos Comenius, a remarkably enlightened man, that we are most inclined to expect an intelligent understanding of the rights and peculiarities of love in children. We find, however, typically enough, that he is far more inclined to speak of love in parents than in children. On the title-page of his Mutterscluile he promises to tell his readers how pious parents should bring up " children their most cherished treasures " to honour God, and should train the children for happiness. Up to the sixth year, the little ones are to be taught piety, morality, and the liberal arts.' Among good morals, love is mentioned, but only in the sense of good actions. Comenius wishes that children should be 1 Schmid, op. cit., vol. iii, § I, p. 93. 1 Ausgewahlte Schriften, pp. 18 et seq. 106 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS accustomed to serve their elders' pleasure vigorously and willingly (p. 20), this implying an important but extremely one-sided development of love in children. Solicitude for this requirement secures expression in the demands for moderate and stimulating chastisement, and in a warning against a foolish fondness which finds everything that the dear little children do delightful (p. 48). The great founder of modern educational science also says : " It is natural to love children, but we shall take a wise precaution if we refrain from letting the children see all our love " (p. 50). He justifies his advice by an allusion to the danger of spoiling- as if a whole-hearted love, this meaning a morally earnest love, could fail to promote the opposite endeavour. Some readers may be estranged by the following passage : "It is therefore better for a father and a mother to keep the child a little afraid of them, rather than give it their whole heart plainly, thus encouraging presumption " (p. 50). Whilst he often warns us against too much tenderness and too many caresses (pp. 53 et seq.), he never has a word to say concerning the positive guidance of the love need. He has no eye for the extent to which morality and religion are built up upon filial affection. He does not think of them as being developed out of this sentiment, but would fain impose them on the child from without. 15. Pietism. Pietism reconquered love for the religious sentiment. But although pietism did justice to the needs of the com- munity, and practised Christian charity, it did not pay due attention to love in children. Spener, Francke, and Zinzen- dorf were continually endeavouring to detach filial affection from the parents and to direct it towards God alone. They inflicted a number of severe and degrading punishments. Zinzendorf, in especial, made it a practice to remove children from their parents as soon as possible, and to bring them up in institutions, so that their love might be withdrawn from its natural objects and concentrated on Jesus, the spiritual bridegroom.1 Unnaturalness wraps itself in priestly vest- ments ; a misguided piety does not hesitate to put out the » Cf. Pfister, Die Frdmmigkeit des Grafen Ludwig von Zinzendorf, pp. 13, 84 et seq., and 104. TREATED IN EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE 107 blackbird's eyes to make the bird sing more sweetly. Yet these men were quite unaware of their own cruelty. i6. Locke (1632-1704). It is noteworthy that even so liberal-minded and enlightened a man as John Locke should not have always attained to clear views as to the importance of love in children in connexion with sound education. True, he demands that there should be love and fondness between children and parents 1 ; but his advice is unlikely to encourage such relationships. There is doubtless good reason for the remark that parents " being wisely ordained by nature to love their children, are very apt, if reason watch not that natural affection very warily ... to let it run into fondness " (§ 34)- Nor need we demur to the counsel that the respect which parents demand from their children should be allowed, when the children grow up, to become a relationship " nearer to familiarity," and indeed one of affectionate friendship (§ 40). But Storring has rightly put in a plea against the contention that children may fitly be withheld from all intimacy with their parents.2 Locke insists that parents should exact strict obedience from their children (§ 40). " Fear and awe (!) ought to give you the first power over their minds " (§ 42). He explicitly demands the " carrying of a strict hand over children " (§ 43), though he has his reserves as to the meaning of this term. " For I am very apt to think that great severity of punishment does but very little good ; nay, great harm in education " (§ 43). " If the mind be curbed and humbled too much in children ; if their spirits be abased and broken too much, by too strict an hand over them, they lose all their vigour and industry " (§ 46). " Slavish discipline makes a servile temper " (§ 50). He recommends, therefore, that children should " have their lives made as pleasant and as agreeable to them as may be, in a plentiful enjoyment of whatsoever might innocently delight them." Locke writes golden words concerning the freedoms children should be permitted to enjoy; he tells us that cheerfulness is as essential to them as eating and drinking ; and that kindliness 1 Locke, Some Thoughts concerning Education, 1693. ' Starring, Die Hebei der sittlichen Entwicklung der Jugend, 1911, p. 117. 108 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS must be the obverse of the necessary strictness. We cannot but sympathise with his aim to avoid the extremes of spoiling and harshness. 17. Rousseau (1712-1778). Rousseau censures far more strongly than any of his predecessors had done the danger of injuring love in children by severity. He writes : " You say mothers spoil their children, and no doubt that is wrong, but it is worse to deprive them as you do. The mother wants her child to be happy now. She is right, and if her method is wrong, she must be taught a better. Ambition, avarice, tyranny, the mistaken foresight of fathers, their neglect, their harshness, are a hundredfold more harmful to the child than the blind affection of the mother." 1 He has likewise a fine insight into the important part love plays in human life : "I cannot understand how any one who loves nothing can possibly be happy." 2 It is all the more extraordinary that, in his great fictional work on education, Rousseau should almost entirely ignore love in children, and that he should seem to know nothing about the infinitely manifold and extremely tortuous paths of children's love. Apart from general exhortations, he has nothing to say on the topic ; but we must not infer that love is not regarded as the essential motive power in his educational system. Indeed, the following passage shows that love is so regarded: " Love childhood, promote its amusements, its pleasures, its amiable instinct. Fathers, do you know the moment when death lies in wait for your children ? Beware lest you should have to repent having robbed them of the fleeting moments which nature bestows on them. See to it that they may enjoy without curtailment the pleasures of existence, as soon as they become able to do so. Be careful that whatever the hour when God may call them away, they shall not die without having tasted joy I " 3 18. The Philanthropists. The gentle spirit of the philanthropists led them to encourage the growth of love in children, but they had 1 Emile, or Education, quoted from Barbara Foxley's translation, Every- man's Library, p. 5. 1 Op. cit. 3 Op. cit. TREATED IN EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE 109 little knowledge of psychology. Among them, Salzmann (1744-1811) was the most vigorous advocate of a more liberal treatment of the child. In his Krebsbiichlein he earnestly demanded the abolition of the cruel punishments that were still customary in his day : " Children comprise the variety of the human species that sighs under oppression, and parents are their oppressors. The ill-treatment they have to suffer in most houses is deplorable. . . . The cause of all the defects, errors, and vices of children is usually to be found in the father, the mother, or both. This sounds a harsh statement, but it is true." We recognise the humane disposition of these kindly men, but it seems to us that the cake with which the philanthropists were so lavish was no better adapted than the cane to stimulate the child mind towards its highest attainments, towards the most perfect realisation of the purposes for which it exists. 19. Pestalozzi (1746-1827). We now come to the thinker who must be regarded as the Copernicus of love in children. Heinrich Pestalozzi was the first to recognise clearly how the highest moral and religious forces develop out of this sentiment. With an admirable talent for observation he applied the idea of an evolution of filial affection. His first book, Abendstunden eines Einsiedlers, exhibits the insight of a seer, surveying the life history of love from its beginnings to its highest phases. " If your father strengthens your nature inwardly, if he brightens your days, fortifies your power to endure, and is able to develop within you an overplus of benedictions, then you are enjoying the training of nature to a belief in God " (§ 84). " The bread that my child eats out of my hand forms his youthful sentiments ; this is the formative influence, not his astonishment at my night watches, and not my care for his later years " (§85). Pestalozzi's first purely educational treatise, entitled Von dev Erziehung,1 develops this idea. " More dependent and more helpless than any other creature on earth, at its mother's breast and on its nurse's lap the infant receives its first impressions of morality in the obscure feeling of love 1 In " Das Schweizerblatt fur das Volk/' 1782. 110 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS and gratitude" (39). "The bodily needs and their satis- faction thus become the foundation of all the training of the disposition, the most essential factors being gratitude and love. The progress of morality is nothing other than the expansion, the fuller development, the encouragement, and the determination, of the sentiments of gratitude and love which were already felt by the satisfied, refreshed, and caressed infant " (40). Here we have extremely fruitful outlooks, but the benevolent Pestalozzi had meagre opportunities of putting his ideas into practice. Very important are many of the reflections in his letter concerning the Stans institution (1799). Consider, for instance, the proposition : " Scholastic instruction which does not concern itself with the whole mind that is in need of education and which is not applied to all the domestic circumstances of the pupil, leads in my opinion to nothing more than an artificially produced atrophy of our race " (§ 15). Again : " It is an essential of all good education that in the home the mother shall daily and hourly be able to read in the child's eyes, to discern upon its mouth and forehead, every modification in the mental state. Especially is it requisite that the motive power of the education shall be the paternal energy that permeates the whole domestic environment. It was on this that I built my system. My children must every moment from early morning till late at night see upon my forehead and learn from my lips that my heart was wholly given to them, that their happiness was my happiness, and their joy my joy " (§ 16). Love and beneficence are to be the foundations; accomplishments will follow in due course (§33)- In his book Wie Gertrud ihre Kinder lehrt (1801), Pestalozzi gives fuller details anent the bearings of love in children, and especially concerning filial affection. In the famous thirteenth letter, he enquires : " How can I learn to love human beings, to trust them, to thank them, to obey them ? " His answer is : "I find that these feelings arise mainly out of the relation- ship between the young child and its mother " (p. 273). The germs of love in the child are developed by the mother's activities in feeding the child, in caring for it and protecting it, and in ministering to its pleasure (p. 274). The feelings of love, gratitude, and trust are then extended to God as TREATED IN EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE 111 if he were the father, to God as if he were the mother (p. 276). The nature of the world, likewise, is first grasped by the child through the mother. The letter ends with the appeal: " Mother, mother, sanctify for me through the support of thy heart the transition from thy heart to this world ! " Never has the importance of love in children to the formation of ideas concerning the world of the religious sentiment and of the moral will been so clearly grasped. Our researches will furnish literal and amazing confirmation of Pestalozzi's views. Kindred thoughts are to be found in the fourteenth letter. The same ideas are carried a stage further in Ansichten und Erfahrungen, die Idee der Elementarbildung betreffend, published in 1807. " Love is the feeling which alone gives pure expression to the essence of the higher sentiment of human nature; it is the centre from which all the other feelings must be coordinated, guided, invigorated, and controlled if they are to be harmonised with the higher sentiments of our nature in all its comprehensiveness " (326). That which consecrates us, uplifts us, and perfects our nature, issues out of love, and this comes from the parents and from the relationship of the child to the parents (327). " Where love and the active promotion of love prevail in the domestic circle, we can predict that hardly anything will be lacking to the child's education " (329). " One who loves, spares no effort on behalf of the object of his love ; and an active love leads ... to an unconditional firmness, zest, and cordiality in all the doings of life, and in the attainment of everything which insight and love disclose as the goal of endeavour " (330). But both in the child and in the parents, love is more closely intertwined with sensuality, indolence, and selfishness, than with the higher impulses that issue from love (345). " He, therefore, who desires the certain attain- ment of this goal of training the child to love and energy must be prepared to abandon even father and mother, his whole race, and heaven and earth, and must withdraw into himself in order to seek and to find in himself alone the secure founda- tion of love and its energy " (346). To the psychology of yesterday, the full bearing of this great thought was incom- prehensible. The whole of education was based by Pestalozzi upon pure 112 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS love,1 directed at first towards the parents, and subsequently uplifted towards the highest peaks of morality and religion. Were it for this discovery alone, Pestalozzi would rank among the pioneers. But if we enquire what it is that leaves us unsatisfied with Pestalozzi's writings, and why his ideas were neglected, we find the following answer. He made no endeavour to undertake individual observations which might have disclosed the relationships between the highest achieve- ments of the mind and children's love for their parents. He was content with categorical assertions of which he offered no proof. He paid no attention to the fate that may await love during the phases of its development; above all, he ignored the disturbances and aberrations that occur in countless instances. Ignoring them, he could give us no help towards averting these evils. He never undertook a systematic study of the manifestations of love in children. In his work Meine N achforschungen uber den Gang der Natur in der Entwicklung des Menschengeschlechts (1797 and 1821), it is remarkable to find that he pays hardly any attention to the evolution of love in children. 20. Palmer (1811-1875). A detailed account of leading educationists subsequent to Pestalozzi would take us beyond the scope of the present work. Suffice it to say that not one of them can be regarded as a worthy successor of Pestalozzi in respect of this matter of love in children, however much they may have excelled him in psychological knowledge and practical insight. Nearest to Pestalozzi as regards appreciation of the importance of love in children is Christian von Palmer, who definitely declares that only through training can filial affection become a moral force.' 21. Contemporary Pedagogy and the Study of Child Psychology. Herbart founded the theory of education (apart from ethics) upon psychology. The inadequacy of this psychology is shown by Herbart's proposition that, " Love depends upon * " Ueber die Idee der Elementarbildung," 1809, pp. 504 et seq. * Palmer, Evangelische Padagogik, second edition, 1855, p. 226. TREATED IN EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE 113 the harmony of sensations, and upon habit." 1 Since then, psychology has remained the basis of educational theory. ClaparMe considers that pedagogy should be founded upon psychology just as horticulture is founded upon a knowledge of plants.3 Although earlier attempts-the publications of Tiedemann in 1787, Lobisch in 1851, Sigismund in 1856, and Kussmaul in 1859-had not been able to stir the inert professorial mind, of late a fertile psychology of childhood has developed. Preyer was the first to interest psychological experts in this subject, by his book Die Seele des Kindes (The Mind of the Child), published in 1882. But the new idea was like a slip which has to be transplanted before it can develop vigorously. On the soil of the New World, Stanley Hall gave fresh life to the professorial bantling by calling into existence a national organisation for child study. Since then, the learned of all lands have been making their way into the closed precinct. But in the psychology of childhood, love remained the Cinderella in whom no one was interested. It seems hardly credible that Preyer, whose express purpose it was to study the mental development of human beings during the first years of life, should have completely excluded love from his field of observation-as if love were not part of the mental life ! Herein we see the influence of the intellectualist poverty which is inseparably coupled to psychology and makes it so unsatisfying and so barren. The Englishman, James Sully, in his Studies of Childhood, devotes a little attention to love. But he practically limits himself to the first mani- festations. There is no question of any close examination of the development of love during the years of childhood. Our desire for knowledge is quite unsatisfied by the scanty and superficial observations of this author. In other lands, the psychology of childhood leaves love in the background, though the reason for the neglect is dubious. It may be because love is a poor relation, unfitted to move in genteel circles ; or perhaps because it is an unruly infant which the professors feel themselves unable to control. The most careful and most advanced psychology of childhood, that of Claparede, has not got so far as to deal with the affective ' Herbart, Padagogische Schriften, 1877, vol. i, p. 19. a Psychologic de 1'enfant, fifth edition, p. 1. 114 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS life. Nevertheless, with the honesty that characterises him, the Genevese professor frankly tells his readers in how poor a case the psychology of childhood and the theory of education are to-day : " The problem of education is still extremely obscure. In part this is due to the difficulties which beset the study of the feelings, of character, the will, the whole domain of morality ; in part it depends upon the multiformity of the philosophical ideas by which educationists are guided." 1 Nor do we find any adequate attempt to grapple with the mysteries of love in children in William Stern's Psychology of early Childhood. From the material he adduces, we can gather no fresh lights upon our chosen subject. Gustav Stbrring, in his psychological and pedagogical treatise Die Hebei der sittlichen Entwicklung der Jugend, published at Leipzig in 1911, does indeed refer in passing to love as an important factor of impulse. But as regards the biology of love in children, and as regards the training of the sentiment in early life, he tells us little of value, either in this book or in the one mentioned in the first chapter, the Psycho- logic des menschlichen Gefuhlslebens. Pedagogical books of the present day do not, indeed, deny that love is among the means available to educationists,2 but the authors have no precise knowledge of this protean impulse, its developmental possibilities, or its aberrations. How often the garden becomes a maze, and what urgent distresses are suffered by children in this maze, is hidden from these authors. A recent authority on the psychology of childhood and on education, Max Brahn, makes the remarkable admission : " Morality in children has hitherto been studied chiefly by criminologists and medical practi- tioners." 3 Ernst von Sallwiirk vouchsafes no psychological study of love in children in his comprehensive work Die Schule des Willens als Grundlage der gesamten Erziehung. He makes only the most casual references to parental love as a means to education (pp. 74 and 395). F. W. Foerster, who lays much stress on the psychological basis of the art of education, recognises the need for making the family attractive and 1 Claparfede, Psychologic de 1'enfant, fifth edition, p. 197. » Cf. Lehmann, Erziehung und Erzieher, 1901, p. 85. J Brahn, Das Seelenleben des Kindes, in the section Das sittliche Empfinden des Kindes, vol. i, p. 141. TREATED IN EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE 115 sacred to the child.1 He depicts the heroism of love charmingly, and gives much excellent advice concerning the way in which the child can be made to love love. But here, likewise, the psychological foundations are unsatisfactory. Perhaps that is why Foerster overestimates the importance of oral education, of what is said to children. He misunder- stands the injunction to love (p. 468), for he misconceives the deepest love imperatives of human nature. In his Philosophische Pddagogik (p. 274), August Stadler is aware that the influence of parents upon the child is propor- tional to the love of the child for its parents. He warns us against a multiplicity of reproofs and orders, insisting that parents ought to be regarded by their children as friends and not as the wielders of authority. But this author, too, makes no precise study of love in children, and does not get beyond the general knowledge possessed by every normal teacher. The finest and the best among the pre-analytical references to love in children in educational literature, are to be found in the writings of Friedrich Paulsen. No one else has so successfully entered into Pestalozzi's heritage. With admirable truth he speaks of grateful affection for the mother and a sense of dependence on the mother as the first feelings that lift the child above the level of a purely sensual life ; and his references to the love among brothers and sisters are no less excellent.3 Thus the family becomes the school of all the social virtues, and is thereby made the basis of all human thriving. Nevertheless, in comparison with Pestalozzi's clear insight, Paulsen's tender utterances fail to mark any progress, indicating rather a narrowing of the horizon. In the work of Paul Haberlin,3 on the other hand, real progress can be registered. Although his devotion to Kant is almost fanatical, 4 he escapes the rigorism of the master (that moralist so hostile to impulse) by tempering the rough wine of the categorical imperative with a dash of love. He is right in renewing the old demand that the offer and the acceptance of love shall be associated with morality. His remarks concerning sentimental love in teachers, childish 1 Foerster, Jugendlehre, 1904, p. 40. 1 Paulsen, Pkdagogik, 1911, p. 183. 5 Haberlin, Wege und Irrwege der Erziehung, 1918. ♦ Cf. Pfister, Zum Kampf um die Psychoanalyse, pp. 309-331. 116 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS enthusiasm, the fraudulent acquisition of love, " goodness " in children, the results of being chary in the display of love, and the moralisation of children's need for love, show that the author has a considerable understanding of psychoanalysis, though he unfortunately fails to apply this knowledge adequately in other departments of his investigation. To Haberlin must be given the credit of having been the first academic educationist to pay a fair amount of attention to psychoanalytical data. He has even studied the aberrations of love, and has described some of them, though only in outline. Thus, although he has broken a trail, much still remains to be done. Moreover, Haberlin does not describe the methods by which aberrant love can be redirected into normal channels. PART ONE THE NORMAL AND ABNORMAL DEVELOPMENT OF LOVE IN CHILDREN A LIKES AND DISLIKES I. The Love of the Child for its Parents CHAPTER SIX LOVE AS THE CONTENT OF CONSCIOUSNESS Pestalozzi, as we know, has described the attitude of the child towards its parents as the basis of the development of character. Among all the influences which affect the emotional and voluntary life of the new citizen of our planet, the mother and the father indubitably take the first place. The position assumed by the child towards them is, to some extent, decisive for its whole subsequent development. If they are a source of joy, the child will endeavour to transfer to the whole species the gratitude felt for them, the con- fidence displayed towards them-these individuals who are the firsEspecimens of our race with whom the little debutant makes acquaintance upon the stage of life. If, on the other hand, the parents are predominantly disturbers of pleasure and bringers of discomfort, the child's negative attitude towards them will readily be extended to other members of the species. If they allow favours to be extorted by cajolery or threats, there is danger that the child's will may develop along lines thus suggested, so that its attention will be directed towards cajoleries and extortions instead of towards desirable activities. How can a child acquire a keen faith in life, learn to take pleasure in welldoing, acquire venera- tion for the moral law, a sound estimate of its own ego, a practical love for its neighbour-except from its relation- ships to the members of its immediate circle ? Parental influence begins with a hundred per cent, con- 119 120 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS tribution, since before birth the child is absolutely dependent upon father and mother. After birth, the curve sinks both for bodily and mental influences, but remains considerably high during the first year. The most modern educationists, basing their view on the psychoanalytical experiences of Sigmund Freud, maintain that the character is chiefly determined during the first four or five years of life. I should hardly go so far as this, but I consider that the early impressions are the most important of all. The pliable shoot of childish desires can still be bent, whereas the rigid stem will break sooner than accept a modification of form. But we shall continue to underestimate the effect of external influences so long as we ignore the subterranean links between human actions. It would be an excellent thing to describe the happy results of a normal evolution of a child's love for its parents. The difficulties are, however, too great at present. We do not as yet possess any method by which we can trace out the course of pedagogic influences, as by the use of colouring matter we can trace the course of an underground stream. Psychoanalysis has hitherto been employed chiefly in persons suffering from some form of disorder. However, these mor- bid manifestations are but magnified copies of phenomena occuring in normal persons, and the magnification allows us to detect their structure and the forces that are at work in their production. The same laws are in operation in the character that develops freely and beautifully in the light, as in the crippled mind that grows in the darkness. Just as the study of the diseased body enables us to understand the vital processes in the healthy body, so is it with the biology of the human mind. I shall therefore deal first with a number of persons who, despite many advantages, had a more or less abnormal development ; and I shall begin with those in whose con- sciousness love predominated. The psychoanalyst often comes across people who have a positively fanatical love for their parents and perhaps also for brothers and sisters. This need not be a sterile or mawkish love ; it may be an active affection, passionately intimate, eager to do great things in life. Such persons often show towards their teachers, particularly those that LOVE AS THE CONTENT OF CONSCIOUSNESS 121 are of mature age, a remarkable tenderness, and for their sake will display exceptional diligence. But only inexperi- ence will take pleasure in contemplating such exaggerated displays of love in children-love in which the affect is over- stressed. The expert is aware that invariably a great need is hidden behind the charming activity. The excess of feeling in one place is purchased at the cost of a painful lack elsewhere. I will give a few examples. i. Love predominant in the Conscious and in the Unconscious. A young woman twenty-four years of age is remarkably fond of her parents, who really seem almost to fulfil the ideal of an educationist. They bring up their child with kindness, a fine humour, and serious tact, and they set an excellent example by their peaceful and sterling married life. They give the child all possible care without any restriction of liberty ; implant a delight in the noble fulfilment of duty ; enlarge the child's horizon to include love of one's neighbour and a Christian love of God ; educate to the best of their capacity, without showing too much that they are educating. Perhaps their greatest fault is that they have too few faults. For their daughter loves and venerates them to an extent rarely witnessed. To give them pleasure, to be worthy of them, to do as they do, is her most ardent yearning. The only person who ranks with them in her mind is a religious teacher for whom likewise she has a fervent veneration. She is also exceedingly fond of her brother, who is two years older than herself ; and she has a girl friend who is very dear to her. She feels strongly drawn towards God, her parents, and all mankind. She is happy with her father and her mother. Not the slightest friction ever disturbs their life together. Both mentally and bodily, the girl is admirably endowed. She has grown up in well-ordered relationships ; has been very successful in her school life ; is diligent in her domestic activities; and, in her leisure hours, works zealously for the good of others and for her own mental development. Most observers would conclude without hesitation that she must have a harmonious and sunny inner life, illumined by a great love and a noble sense of beauty. The only striking draw- 122 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS backs are the way in which she renounces any sort of adorn- ments, and her marked reserve. She almost seems to recall the description of " a nun in secular garb." In reality this greatly favoured being suffers from severe needs. Without being ambitious, she feels herself oppressed with the feeling of inner poverty and vacancy. She is un- aware of her internal and external advantages. On the contrary, she believes that she can neither do anything nor be anything-though she has to admit that she does all that she can, and that she excels her girl comrades alike in know- ledge and in voluntary activities for the good of others. Anxiety regarding the future is a grave trouble to her. Her depression is often intense. She is greatly appreciated by every one with whom she comes in contact, but her self- criticism makes her reject all praise, so that her net summary of herself is unfavourable. The psychoanalytical investigation throws light on the case. This girl whose environment was so full of love and tenderness was perfectly happy with her parents and her brother. Her going to school was a distress to her. In the first class she felt estranged from the others, although this sense of estrangement did not extend to the teacher. She was among the average of the pupils. Her sense of inferiority, consequently, could not simply be ascribed to timidity. Enquiry was therefore made concerning any striking occur- rences during childhood. She said, " I was very happy in my childhood until the ' ferreting ' business began. But even when I was quite little, I would often sit in front of something and ask myself what it was really like in its inside. Or when I was looking at pictures of houses, I would think that if one scratched away something one would see what was inside. What I was especially interested in was the problem what could be inside a carved ivory dog. It seemed to be impossible that there could be nothing inside, and I felt that it must be able to think." There were minor anxiety troubles. After being told some fairy tales, she came to imagine that a wolf or some other formidable beast was hiding behind the curtain. Frequently she had an anxiety dream that a horse was forcing its way through the front door. She suffered from feelings of inferiority, although these LOVE AS THE CONTENT OF CONSCIOUSNESS 123 were not obvious at the first glance. She had always been a healthy little girl, pretty and gifted, beloved and bepraised. Obviously, therefore, a sense of being slighted could have played no part in these feelings. When she had once heard some one say that parents would rather have a little boy than a little girl, she asked her own parents about this, and, being told that they were just as glad to have one as the other, she was satisfied with the answer. She says that she was never envious of her brother because he was a boy. It was not until she came back from the boarding-school that her mother became aware that the girl, now seventeen or eighteen years old, held aloof from boys. She did not wish to go to dances and other parties. She always dressed very plainly, and showed no interest in the idea of being married some day-indeed she was directly averse to the idea. At first the analysis ran a slow course. We had a sitting only once a fortnight. The dreams told only what the con- scious wished, told of the longing to lead a model life and the hope of being able to do so. For example, the first dream she related-it dated from five years back, but was still vivid in her mind-ran as follows : "I am sitting beside a very deep mountain lake. The air and the sky are extremely dark, but the stars are shining beautifully. I do not know whether I am really seeing this or only in a book entitled ' The Book of the Soul.' Certainly the picture was awfully lovely." This judgment passed in the dream itself upon what was dreamed shows that we really have to do with a soul picture. The dreamer sees herself in an obscure situation, but the stars of hope are shining upon her. Shortly before the dream she had actually stayed by the side of a mountain lake. The associations gave no details regarding the cause of the obscurity or the nature of the hope. By degrees only did the profounder difficulties come to light. Up till then the analysand had confined herself to elaborating the pro- gram of an ideal life. She spoke of her intention to be more useful to others, and the bringing of this plan into conscious- ness strengthened the good resolution. But the depression did not pass away, or did so only for a short time, and all endeavours to ward it off were vain, although our conversa- 124 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS tions brought appeasement and pleasure. Not until many weeks had elapsed, not until the erotic problem had emerged clearly into consciousness,were the bonds loosened. This was the upshot of the investigation. The beginning of the spiritual trouble coincided with that of the ferreting into the inwardness of various objects, and especially of the ivory dog which was supposed to be able to think. What had happened? One day her brother, who had a little play- mate with him, wished to undertake an inspection. The little girl, who was then five years old, was horrified. One part of her wished to run away, but another part of her felt rooted to the spot, for she wanted to know if an exposure would take place. She did not actually see anything im- proper, yet she regarded the experience as something horrible of which she could not speak to anyone. During her girl- hood, whenever she remembered it she asked herself whether she would have any right to marry a man of high moral views. She was not aware of having herself done anything wrong, and yet she could not put the matter out of her mind. Her shame was so intense, that even during the analysis she concealed the incident as long as possible, this giving her pangs of conscience, and hindering the conclusion of the work. Now we can understand the ferreting into the inwardness of the dog. The little enquirer was obviously concerned with the secret of the human body, the dog representing this. Whether we grown-ups like it or not, this concern with the body is of enormous importance to children. When an educationist denies that children have an interest in matters of sex-quoting, perhaps, the familiar tale of the little boy who said he did not know whether boys or girls were bathing with him because they were all naked-such a teacher over- looks that there must have been a repression here, that the conscious must have wished not to see, or must have been forbidden to see, since otherwise the difference between boys and girls would have been obvious. As regards the formidable wolf, and the horse which was trying to break into the house, these represent the animal impulses which in subsequent years were so strenuously re- jected. From a very early date, the analysand did not merely reject all the life of impulse, but positively repressed it, LOVE AS THE CONTENT OF CONSCIOUSNESS 125 thrust it down into the unconscious, so deeply that it could not make its way back into the conscious. Before this ex- planation had been offered came the following dream : " Mother is hanging out the washing. I went round the house, and looked always to see whether the faun was not somewhere near. I knew that he was in the forest, and therefore there was no danger. I remembered that my mother had said that the faun had once come ; but was so hideous that even the dog had run away from him. But now he was nowhere near." [Mother is hanging out the washing.]1 She is so diligent. The dog-kennel was close by. I wish I could work as hard as my mother. [The faun had once come.] With the dog-kennel. There I had an experience : once I saw two dogs which were doing something together. I told my brother about it, and he said that one ought not to speak of such things. I was always very shy about such matters. Thus the dream expresses the wish that the faun-like, the sensual, everything which is thought of as hateful, may be kept as far as possible from the dreamer and her house ; and that she, like her mother, may devote herself wholly to useful work, without being afflicted by the faun-like, etc. After this interpretation, which resulted in a deliberate rejection of the outlawry of the sensual, a marked improve- ment of mood promptly appeared. But there was a relapse, for the new ethical insight into the justification for natural ordinances had not made its way into the unconscious. Further tedious work was requisite to ascertain the reasons for the splitting of the impulsive life. In this matter, the following dream proved of the utmost service. The dreamer was swimming with her brother to a little village, on which was the inscription " Fain." At the sight of this name she thought of " Faun." Thus, in company with her brother, she was directing herself towards the faun-like. She easily realised that her affects were linked to her brother, and had therefore been suppressed. This example suffices to make 1 The matter in square brackets was repeated to the analysand, with the injunction that, without any deliberate direction on her part, she should relate uncritically the impression that first came to her mind. This impression [association] is what immediately follows the passage in square brackets. 126 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS it perfectly clear that there was an unconscious incest wish, a desire for incest with her brother. We often encounter this motif among neurotic patients as a cause of disease, and we know that it plays a great part in imaginative literature and saga.1 It follows that, notwithstanding the wealth of charm and dignity presented by this young girl, the passionate love for her parents was but the obverse of an intense need, an evil tie, indeed, a morbid inhibition which was a menace to the whole personality. Let no one believe that such a situation is a rarity ! Precisely where parents treat their children with the greatest kindness, and where the parents' conduct is exemplary, the child may have its affects so concentrated on the parents that it shuts itself off from the rest of the world. In the outer world, such a child does not feel at home ; only from a sense of duty will it love the world, not with an inner joy. In the world it feels estranged and ill at ease ; it cannot move there vigorously and confidently ; it therefore feels a sense of weakness, and consequently grows weak. The less well it is able to make its way in this wider environment, the more yearningly does it flee back into the parental home. Thus, turning continually in a circle, it burrows ever more deeply into its prison. The crisis usually arises when, as in our analysand, after sexual maturity has been attained it becomes necessary to take up a definite position towards sexual love. Then it becomes apparent that the necessary freedom in the use of the mental energies is lacking. Often the impulsive powers seem dried up or undeveloped ; in many cases, the strangest aberrations may become apparent. But we should exceed the limits of the present investigation, were we to follow these developments further at this stage. After prolonged work the analysis was able to remove the pressure of the sense of inferiority, and to create a cheerful temperamennt, filled with delight in work. For a year, the mood was thoroughly satisfactory, and the mental interests grew admirably. But the enfranchisement did not extend to the entire personality. Despite all the progress that had been made, there remained a certain shy reserve, an almost nun-like and gloomy aspect. Later it became apparent 1 Cf. Otto Rank, Das Inzest-Motiv in Sage und Dichtung. LOVE AS THE CONTENT OF CONSCIOUSNESS 127 that far too much of the normal love tendencies, those which the healthy and morally free individual is able to command, were forcibly repressed beneath the threshold of conscious- ness. Two years after the close of the first analysis, the depression returned, although it was less profound than of yore. I may almost say that the return was fortunate. It was obvious that an analysis of the repressed love impulses was essential. Now only did the inspectionist scene, which had hitherto deliberately been passed over in silence, come up for discussion. Had I been somewhat less considerate in my treatment, had I at the outset insisted upon a careful analysis of the sexual life, the enfranchisement and the ethical sanation would have been complete. Now even in the dreams became apparent the strongly repressed fantasy which we shall so often meet-the desire to wed the father, and hatred for the mother who in the conscious sphere was so ardently loved. One day, when she was handing her mother a glass of water, the thought rose into her mind : " How would it be if you were to throw some needles into the glass ? " But such fantasies were rare. Characteristic was a dream in which the sleeper was kissed by a man. On awaking, this seemed to her some- thing great and solemn, and she had no feeling of having been to blame. Yet she was ashamed of her feelings, and she was afraid that the analyst would despise her if she told him about it. Her love feelings were still far too much directed towards the father and the brother, and were there- fore repressed, that is to say, were forced out of the conscious. Consequently, a normal attitude towards other men was impossible. Instead of, like a normal free personality, encountering anyone without any sense of restraint and with a feeling of moral security, she fled from all persons who might have aroused any feelings like those which chained her to her father and her brother. To this extent, therefore, there was a justification for the feeling of inferiority ; but where this feeling went astray, as always, was that it did not disclose what was really amiss. This time the analysis was more thoroughly effective. The girl lost her anaemic, life-renouncing mode of thought, without forfeiting her ethical delicacy or her religious fervour. The idolisation of the parents disappeared, but in the ordinary human sense 128 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS she drew nearer to them. Whereas the parents had hitherto suffered in consequence of the repression in their daughter's nature, they were henceforward able to rejoice in the fresh- ness, in the natural vigour, of her behaviour. 2. Love predominant in the Conscious and Hate PREDOMINANT IN THE UNCONSCIOUS. Although in the case just recorded, it was hardly possible even in the unconscious to detect any hostile sentiments towards the father and the mother, in most cases behind an idolising affection there lurks a repressed hatred, which is all the more vigorous and unwholesome because it is un- conscious. To psychoanalysis we owe the discovery of this sentiment, which is of the utmost importance to our know- ledge of the mind, and which has been proved to exist in numberless cases. Educational science and our whole knowledge of human affairs continue to be deprived of a most valuable aid so long as this fact is ignored. An example will render clear the interplay between conscious love and unconscious hate. A woman of thirty-three came to consult me because she suffered from a number of distressing symptoms. She felt utterly weary and oppressed. Although she regularly worked until one or two in the morning, she felt that she really succeeded in doing nothing. While her children were still wearing long clothes, she would get up quite needlessly every two hours, as soon as the water was hot again, to wash the babies' things. When she woke in the morning she longed for the evening and found it difficult to get up. A strict sense of duty drove her to her occupations, but she took no pleasure in them. In the background of her mind was a sinister dread of insanity. Her marriage was un- happy ; she could not love her husband, though she esteemed him for his character and the goodness of his heart, and earnestly desired to love him. She was tortured by the numerous and bitter reproaches with which he overwhelmed her. She was often blamed unjustly, but often she had to admit there that was good reason for his censures. In spite of all her attempts to improve, she was as it were under a heavy spell, which her best endeavours did not enable her to throw off. The greatest disturbance in her family life LOVE AS THE CONTENT OF CONSCIOUSNESS 129 was caused by the manner in which she frittered away her time over senseless hygienic measures for the supposed benefit of her two children, aged seven and four years respectively, neglecting to this end really necessary things. Consequently, though husband and wife respected one another, and wished to love one another, there was talk of a separation. How does this case bear on what we are now considering ? Is not the subject of this book love in children ? Certainly, but every analytical investigation of an inhibition of de- velopment leads us back to childhood, and we cannot but be pleased when we can learn, not only what are the symptoms during childhood, but what are the subsequent effects in adult life. Moreover, this particular case enables us to draw conclusions as to the linking of love in children with the life of the previous and the subsequent generation. The analysand had been a healthy, vigorous, pretty, and merry child. She could not recall any sense of having been slighted, nor had any excessive timidity been noticed in her during the early years of life. But during her school days, when she was associating with her schoolmates, she felt a certain sense of restraint, since before going to school she had associated almost exclusively with her brothers and sisters. Still, it could not be said that she really cut herself off from her schoolfellows. During the later years of school life, indeed, she formed some intimate friendships. Very striking, however, was the attitude she came to adopt towards her father, whose imposing personality was clad by her childish eyes with a divine nimbus, as it were. She was passionately attached to him, and her veneration knew no bounds. When near him, she felt happy ; separa- te n from him was the most distressing thing she could think of. While still at the secondary school, she felt unhappy if she had to go to the theatre, for this involved a few hours' separation from her father. When she once went to the theatre with her elder sister, she felt very much attracted towards what was going on on the stage, for she had strong artistic sensibilities ; but towards nine o'clock she began to suffer severely, because at about this time her father was wont to come into the drawing-room at home. At a children's party, again, she had run away into the garden, and had cried bitterly because she was not with her father. 130 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS It would hardly be possible to exaggerate the amount of attention she gave to her father, both in public and in private. He filled all her thoughts and made her happy. Even her religious life was wholly overshadowed by the father. When at prayer, she felt far more religious fervour if she was look- ing at her father as she prayed. Later, she used to go to church where the pastor was a friend of her father's ; during the prayers she kept her eyes fixed on this pastor, in order to strengthen her devotion. More and more her father seemed to her godlike. I have never come across a case in which there was a more complete idolisation of the father. Before we examine the unconscious background of these feelings, let us study the development of the consciousness a little more fully. It was noteworthy that of late years the analysand had often dreamed that her father had died, or had suffered from a terrible accident-had been run over, or had been actually killed. During her childhood her attitude towards her mother was good. But at about the age of sixteen, the daughter had gradually assumed a negative attitude towards her mother. There were disputes between mother and daughter, although there was always peace between the parents. On one occasion there was a scene, in which the girl, who was in general extremely gentle and obedient, broke into a furious passion, and positively foamed at the mouth. Un- fortunately, it was impossible to ascertain what had been the precise cause of this outburst, which was an isolated occurrence. The analysand had been very fond of her brothers and sisters. Her conduct had always been exemplary. In diligence, conscientiousness, and talent, she excelled all or most of her school-fellows. An incident which still aroused a sense of remorse after the lapse of long years, had thrown a shadow upon her school days. When she was eight years old, she had allowed herself to be persuaded by her brother to steal a school copy-book, and to give it to her brother. At the age of thirteen she made a false statement, and this also left a severe sense of wrongdoing. It was noteworthy that when she was fifteen she had to be positively forced to attend a dancing class, and that she played truant as often as she possibly could. LOVE AS THE CONTENT OF CONSCIOUSNESS 131 The years at the middle school were the happiest she ever knew. She learned eagerly and easily. Soon, how- ever, a friendly intimacy became more delightful to her than her studies. She struck up a close friendship with a cousin who bore the same name as her father. She was strongly attached to him, and had a delightful spiritual companionship with him. She admired everything he said and did, and even neglected her school duties for the sake of this friendship. During the days of the relationship her handwriting became formed and definite, whereas pre- viously it had been and subsequently it again became weakly in its characteristics. Every thought of an engagement seemed impossible to her, actually distasteful. The mere phrase of endearment " dear cousin " seemed to her an impermissible intimacy. When her cousin married, and therefore ceased to associate with her, she returned with renewed zest to her studies. After the school years were over, she wanted to go on studying, although she had no preference for any particular branch of knowledge, and had no practical use to make of what she had learned. What attracted her was, not so much knowledge per se, as the process of learning. Her father could not perceive any sufficient ground for encouraging this desire to study, and gently discouraged her. The young woman knew that with a little persistence she could have got her own way, but she held her tongue, and shortly afterwards grew melancholy. This mood was taken seriously, for one of her near relatives had made a definite attempt at suicide, and had been long kept under restraint. Since her physical health also gave rise to anxiety, she was, when twenty years of age, sent to a health resort. There she soon improved so much that she was able to return home. All attempts to find her an occupation away from home were frustrated by the intensity of her home-sickness. The most trifling separation from her father reduced her to despair. She promptly abandoned the idea of going to the university as soon as she realised that this would involve her living away from home. After some years, which had been spent mainly in domestic occupations in her parents' house, a suitable young fellow began to woo her. Her father gave the suit all his support. The girl respected the young man greatly 132 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS but had no warmer feeling for him. However, since her father commended him as a thoroughly able and good fellow, she agreed to an engagement. She continued to hope that her feelings would become warmer, but in vain. She would not allow her betrothed to kiss her ; and she could not per- suade herself to address him as " dearest." Her dreams at this period usually related to a fall down a precipice. Once only, when she was with her betrothed during the holidays, she dreamed that she was sitting at work in her mother's chair, and her betrothed came and said : " We belong to one another." She took no delight at the thought of the coming marriage, and she would have greatly preferred to break off her engagement. On the way to the registry office, she was seriously wondering whether she would not say " No." At first, however, the marriage was more successful than might have been expected. The young wife was faithful in the performance of her duties, and felt more drawn towards her husband. Soon, nevertheless, his faults became ap- parent, especially his inclination to express his censures in violent and coarse phraseology, and to assume the airs of a pasha. The young woman's disillusionment was terrible, especially since in her own home she had never heard her parents exchange a rough word. In the recesses of her mind, she fled for refuge to her home. After many months it was still her custom to say, " I am going home," when she was about to visit her parents, and the husband used the same phrase when he went to visit his relatives. Soon, the wife became affected with an obsessive action, which took up a great deal of time. Cups, teapot, etc., must all be placed on the table in such a way that the handles were at right angles to the sideboard ; even when time pressed, the chairs must all be geometrically at right angles with the table ; and so on. This craze led to great unpunctuality in the affairs of the household, since more important matters were delayed ; and her meticulousness in these trifles was compensated, as always, by negligence in matters of more moment. The good woman continued to reproach herself bitterly, growing ever more nervous, so that all the time the obsession in favour of useless trifles became accentuated. She continued to work half through the night, until she was LOVE AS THE CONTENT OF CONSCIOUSNESS 133 utterly worn out ; and her husband was increasingly es- tranged from her on account of these practices, for he failed to recognise the morbid and irresistible character of his wife's impulses, and fancied that his reproaches or his reasoning would break the spell. Yet he could say nothing to her stronger than she said to herself, and vainly. Her condition thus grew worse and worse, until her whole life was a misery. When she became pregnant, she looked forward eagerly to the birth of the child. But after the event she fell into a state of profound depression. She said to herself that her powers had not proved sufficient for her previous duties, and that therefore she must be incompetent for the new tasks. She hoped that she herself and the child would soon die, and indeed felt a conviction that her own life would last only a few days longer. Especially great was her des- pair when she came back from the lying-in hospital, and her husband grumbled because the baby cried at night. At last, however, she pulled herself together, and fulfilled her maternal duties. But she did this solely in obedience to the categorical imperative; there was not the most modest suggestion of pleasure, not the least spark of inclination, about her actions. Consequently, the unsatisfied vital im- petus could only find expression in new compulsive actions. Now her excessive sense of orderliness became concentrated in a particular direction. She developed a craze about the management of her child's health, and from year to year her hygienic fervour grew worse. The drinking utensils had to be regularly boiled in soda solution. The china, which had been washed up immediately after dinner, had to be washed up again in the evening, although it had not been used again ; then it was taken into an empty room and wrapped up in clean cloths. Before use, a fresh cleansing was requisite, and was felt to be inadequate if it was only a dry rub. If visitors called, after they had left the patient would change her dress, for fear that she might convey the germs of infection to her little girl. No one was allowed to take the child out, for the mother was afraid that in the streets it would be carried through the shadow of the houses instead of round the shadow. I have already spoken of the frequent getting up to wash the baby-linen. It would be impossible to describe in all its details the torment of 134 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS this elaborately thought-out system of hygienic measures. When, three years later, a second child was born, the system was somewhat mitigated, for now there were two objects for her hygienic frenzy. But maternal anxiety still led to a hundred times too much being done for each of the children; and were it not that both of them had brought a fair allowance of healthy energy into the world, they would have been ex- posed to a grave risk of hypochondria. After the birth of the first child, the analysand used to work almost every day until one or two in the morning. Yet she suffered a great deal from the feeling that she did nothing at all. In actual fact, she was incompetent as wife and mother. Like so many people affected with obsessional neurosis, she carried to an absurd degree her re- spect for the categorical imperative, and her joyless regard for the strictest moral law as an ideal. For human beings cannot live without liking what they do ; and the loftiest categorical imperative-one which Kant, owing to his own limitations, was unable to recognise-runs, " Thou shalt love." Nevertheless, her sense of duty preserved her from a complete collapse.1 The mother certainly loved her children, but only from a sense of duty, and without any inner joy. It was always obligation which she had before her eyes, never the delight- ful experience of genuine love. She would gladly have given her life for her family, and would have believed that she did so from a conviction of duty, when in reality it would have been from a longing for death. There were numerous symptoms to demonstrate the existence of a barrier between her and her children. She could not be merry with her children. Although she was musically gifted, she could not bring herself to sing to them, " because the piano is in a room on the shady side of the house." When she was away from the children, she would find herself suddenly unable to recall their features. She was often hasty with them. Yet she felt, and rightly, that she ought to be a great deal more to them, and to bring far more sunshine into their lives. But she simply could 1 As a sheet-anchor for unhappy persons who cannot love, Kant's ethical system deserves respect; but we must strenuously reject the claim that it can be regarded as universally binding, or that it is a doctrine entitled to the halo of completeness. LOVE AS THE CONTENT OF CONSCIOUSNESS 135 not conjure up the necessary joy and sense of freedom for this. All that she could manage was to do her best to con- ceal her terrible feeling of fatigue and oppression, and to go on working beyond the limit of her powers. The sense that she was greatly to blame never left her. Her family doctor, a strict man with religious inclinations, told her that her trouble was all imagination-which did not help her much. Her dreams were notable. In them she often pictured that one of her children was falling into the water and drown- ing, or she allowed the child to fall from the table. In her waking life she had an access of anxiety one day when she was holding one of the children in her arms on the veranda, and had a paroxysm of fear lest it should fall over the rail. Though she recognised that such a fall was impossible, the sense of anxiety persisted. In like manner she could not bear to see her husband walking along the edge of a canal, for she was afraid that he might fall into the water. Before going to sleep, she had to make with her fingers symmetrical movements whose meaning she did not understand. If the little finger of her left hand pointed downwards, she must make the same gesture with the right hand, and so on. Her intellectual interests were atrophied ; her joy of life had completely disappeared ; the danger of insanity loomed ever nearer. How are we to interpret these manifestations ? The most interesting point in this clinical history is the idolisation of the father, and the connexion of this passion with the general characteristics of the patient's life. In childhood, as we have said, she had loved her father to a degree far in excess of the normal. She had given so much tenderness and veneration to the father, that there was no surplus left of these feelings for their proper task in life. Much against the father's will, she put him in the place of God. Since her whole mind was devoted to veneration and subserviency, she had no inclination for the ordinary amusements of childhood ; social life and the theatre had lost their attractive power in comparison with the image of the mighty and yet so lovable father. Since the father, a high-minded and moral man, repre- sented the moral law, the pilfering of a copy-book, and minor acts of deceit became for her deeds which seared her soul for decades; she could not even put her mind at rest after 136 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS having confessed to the injured persons the misdeeds of the years of childhood-a confession which she made when she was over thirty years of age. At the same time, by this immoderate severity in her condemnation of trifling lapses of conduct, she was concealing the much graver offences of which we have still to speak. The fixation of her love upon the father had been so strong, that subsequently no one but a father-substitute could arouse a strong affective impulse in her. Her cousin did not only bear the same names as her father, both Christian name and surname, but he resembled the patient's father physically in many respects. The rising tide of erotic passion is seeking a suitable object upon which it can concentrate itself to detach itself from the father, but in accordance with the principle of least effort, it chooses an object which most strongly resembles the father. In this way the daughter remains essentially true to the father. But when there comes a demand for a definite decision in the direction of marriage, the momentous error is brought to light. She cannot give her cousin a wife's love, for she may not marry her father, and in her unconscious her cousin is her father. Owing to the erotic disillusionment, there is a diversion of interest towards the intellectual sphere. Since her childish love has been a failure-or, to phrase it more ac- curately, since the new edition of her childish love, directed now towards a father-substitute, has been a failure-the analysand turns her vital impetus towards intellectual activi- ties. But here, likewise, the attitude towards the father, the direction of the childish love towards the father, works its effect. For the daughter does not love any particular field of knowledge ; she is indifferent what she is studying, so long as she is learning something. In like manner, she does not wish to heap up the treasures of knowledge in order to make any use of them. She merely wishes to be a pupil. The explanation is that she is directing her energies towards another father-substitute, to give the same fanatical devo- tion to this substitute, to the teacher. In actual fact, she has an abnormally strong passion for several of her teachers. She wants to study, and does not know that what she is really desiring is only to be the faithful little daughter. LOVE AS THE CONTENT OF CONSCIOUSNESS 137 Since her father rightly considers this diversion purpose- less, and since her childlike devotion for him makes it im- possible for her to force her way along a path which he forbids, her only resource is melancholia. The natural explanation of her relatives was that her nervous system had been overworked at school. What was really the matter with her, as in so many similar cases, was an uncon- scious attempt to circumvent life's tasks, which it was impossible to perform in normal fashion. But since the treatment brought about a separation from the father, a " cure " speedily followed. Again, it was the love for the father which led to her marriage. A satisfactory marriage would only have been possible had the husband closely resembled the father in many traits. Since this fortunate coincidence did not happen, it was inevitable that the relationship should prove unhappy. The young wife's excessive and futile activities were an atonement for her failures in the matter of love, tenderness, and cordiality. The meticulous arrangement and rearrangement of the table furniture, and the sym- metrical movements of the fingers, were symbolical expres- sions of the idea, " I shall do my utmost to replace the existing disorder by a laboriously exact order." (I knew one young patient suffering from obsessional neurosis who, if he touched a wall with one hand, always found it necessary to touch the wall with the other hand likewise. In this way he wanted to restore the balance of his mind !) Since, however, this symbolical behaviour brought the patient no whit nearer the central aim of i estoring order in her heart and in her house, the failure naturally led to a persistent sense that she was blameworthy. Her morbid, ludicrously petty, and unspeakably distressing endeavours to promote her children's health, cannot be explained out of the young mother's conscious motives. But her dreams disclose that in the unconscious a desire for the children's death was per- sistent. Those only will understand this who have made an exhaustive study of the dream life, and who are aware that in the dream a repressed wish is represented as realised.1 In harmony with this interpretation is the paroxysm of anxiety lest the child, which was in reality safe in her arms 1 Cf. Freud, Die Traumdeutung, 6th edition, pp. 86 et seq. 138 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS and in no danger of falling, should fall over the veranda rail. In harmony, likewise, is her incapacity to be merry with her children, to sing cheerfully to them, to recall the features of her children when they are absent, and so on. The hygienic whimsy is an attempt to shout down and to outrival the desire for the death of the children, which was conscious for a time, was then repressed, and subsequently fermented in the unconscious. But even the love for the father was not untroubled. It is manifest that this love was unfavourable to the child's development. The profound sorrow, which to an increasing extent annulled the original sense of youthful joy, was obviously referable to this alone. Her piety, too, was dis- turbed by the love for the father, seeing that, when she was praying, she had to contemplate her father. During the act of prayer, the father was identified with God. It is noteworthy how the daughter's psyche was able to revenge itself for these needs. The dreams of an accident befalling the father, of his death from natural causes or from accident, were nothing less, once more, than an expression of the repressed desire that he should die, and this desire is her great offence, for it continues to flourish in the depths of the unconscious. Concurrently, there exists another wish which is evil, is remote from the conscious life, and is therefore repressed, though it is one which can be plainly deduced from many of the dreams. This is the longing to replace her mother as the father's wife, to give herself to him wholly in love, and to enjoy his love exclusively. The dreams make it clear that this wish is dominant in all its crudity. The wish that the father might die is only the expression of unhappy love, which has to be repressed, and therefore has so far-reaching and inhibitive an influence on the whole development. In the patient's conscious life, the mother was not much loved, although she was dutifully regarded. This case confirms our contention that a child's love for the parents must be kept within bounds, for its excess in- volves limitations of the personality for which a pitiless revenge is exacted. Since it has as yet been little recognised that love in the conscious may be the counterpart to hatred in the unconscious, I shall record an additional case of the kind. LOVE AS THE CONTENT OF CONSCIOUSNESS 139 A young girl has been suffering for many years from the fantasy that her father, who is in reality quite healthy, is about to die. During sleepless nights she is persistently haunted by this idea, although her critical intelligence rejects it as absurd. She is afraid that she will have to be sent to a lunatic asylum. I asked the girl whether this obsession was the first she had ever had. She told me that when she was about four years old she used to have another haunting and terrible idea. She had then had persistent visions of a picture she had seen in a book. Rudolf von Wart, the murderer of his emperor and uncle (Albrecht), was bound to the wheel on which he has to be broken ; his wife was leaning against the post on which the wheel rested. When the child had this vision, she used to put her head under the blanket, almost dying with fear. Asked as to her attitude towards her father, she said he had always been gentle towards her, never violent. He was her ideal, a splendid and highly gifted man. She had never known anyone to be compared with him ; perhaps two of the senior teachers had been remotely like him. When she had been separated from her parents, were it only for a quarter of an hour, she had cried bitterly. Her admiration for her father grew continually stronger. When he de- scribed a country scene, the girl was always in ecstasies, and when she actually saw the place afterwards she was dis- appointed. No young man whom she knew was to be compared with her father. She therefore fell in love with no one, although she had wooers. When she had to live away at a few hours' distance from her home, she suffered greatly from home-sickness, although she visited her parents every week. She was haunted by an air, the words of which were : " It is so hard to leave one's home ! " Her thoughts con- tinually returned to the death of her father, though she did her best to put the matter out of her mind. She suffered so keenly from a sympathetic pain at the sight of anyone who was unfortunate, that she was afraid to see such persons. It is important to note that in her imagination she often stretched herself on the wheel in Wart's place. When I visited her father, to get his permission to under- take the analysis, I was greatly surprised to learn that this 140 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS man, whom the daughter described as having always been gentle to her, declared that he had in fact been very violent towards his daughter when she was a little girl, for at that time he was suffering from a badly disordered nervous system, although he subsequently recovered. I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of his statements. Where we have to do with a fantasy which has persisted for years with such intensity, the resistances are usually too great for direct analysis to be helpful. One day, when the analysand herself began to speak of the fantasy, dqing so negatively, saying that shortly before she had been unable to call up the image for herself, I secured the following associations : [Wart's wife.] She is kneeling, and is wearing a black shawl. [The shawl.] When my grandfather died, my grand- mother was wearing such a shawl. That is the only time I ever saw such a shawl. [The age of Wart's Vife.] She was young. [Wart's young wife.] Nothing. Thus the associations did not bring us any further. It was, of course, a useful point that the woman in the fantasy called up the image of the grandmother's shawl. I will now ask the reader to help me in finding as simple an interpretation as possible. It is noteworthy that the girl's life centres round a formal idolisation of the father. Her esteem for him is excessive ; his descriptions of scenery excel the most beautiful realities ; no young man can be compared to him. This already suffices to suggest a reaction against an opposite tendency. We are reminded of the excessive cordiality of some one who is intriguing against us ; of the forced cheerfulness of one who is really melancholy. It is further noteworthy that the visionary is quite unaware of her father's former severities, and that she gives definite assurance to the contrary. Here, again, we have a reaction, with amnesia. (Cf. Die psychanalytische Methode, pp. 184 et seq.) The girl is perfectly straightforward, and has no reason for attempting to deceive me. Are we to suppose, then, that her excessive veneration for her father is an overcompensation for former hatred ? LOVE AS THE CONTENT OF CONSCIOUSNESS 141 The fantasy about Wart gives the answer. The child puts herself in Wart's place on the wheel because in her thought she has committed a crime similar to Wart's, and wishes to atone for it. In her fancy, she has wished to kill her father for his harshness towards her, just as Wart killed his uncle and emperor (the emperor being a father-substitute). In her tormenting imagination she is punishing herself. The mourn- ful woman, leaning against the post, and wearing her grand- mother's shawl, is a condensation of the grandmother and the mother.1 What assurance have we that this interpretation is correct ? The answer will be obvious to anyone who knows how dreams and day-dreams represent wish-fulfilments, and what the effect of anxiety ideas is. The proof of the accuracy of our interpretation is to be found in the extant anxiety idea that her father is about to die. This wish, which is now overcompensated by her adoration of her father, must have been conscious in childhood, and we can easily under- stand how it originated out of the man's harshness at that time and out of the child's yearning for tenderness. The evil thought was then rejected with shame and indignation, but it persisted in the unconscious, and inhibited the whole evolution of the love sentiment. As the child grew up, her love energies remained fixed on the father, so that their direction towards a normal object was impossible. By her inviolable fidelity she continues, as in the Wart fantasy, to atone for her former crime. Simultaneously, however, the enchained erotic sentiment takes its revenge in the anxiety idea, and in the wish which that idea enfolds that her father may die. Thus we have in this case one of the very frequent cases in which the conscious content of the mind is opposed to the unconscious, so that there is an anti- podal polarisation of the impulses. At the opposite pole to the savagery which took the form of a wish to kill the father is, as a negative counterforce, excessive sympathy, and an exaggerated veneration for the father. 1 The example is taken from my book Zum Kampf um die Psychoanalyse, pp. 87 et seq. Ci. also Die psychanalytische Methode, pp. 206-211. CHAPTER SEVEN PREDOMINANCE OF DISLIKE IN THE CONSCIOUS i. Dislike both in the Conscious and in the Unconscious. A boy of fifteen, who was harshly treated by a stupid step- mother and a father who was wholly devoted to his new wife, ran away from home, but was forced to return owing to hunger and the admonitions of the police. He ran away again when he was seventeen or eighteen, and although he had no identification papers he was able to pass the summer as herdsman on a remote mountain. Bread and other articles of diet were rationed at the time, and having no papers he could get no coupons. His diet, therefore, was greatly restricted and ill-balanced. Since, however, he was far from mankind, and luxuriated in the beauties of the scenery, he felt well compensated for the inconveniences. He saved up his modest wages, so that for a long time after the cattle had been driven down from the summer pastures he was able to go on living in abandoned barns and sheds, until he was at length forced to return to social life. He had a winning exterior, and had been careful of his clothing, so that people were quite willing to help him. Sometimes another young fellow, and sometimes a girl who took a fancy to him, came to his assistance, all the more since he shrewdly concealed his own lack of affection, and could admirably play the role of the unjustly persecuted stepchild. Through the intermedia- tion of third parties he tried to get his identification papers, but his parents refused to give them up. The lad had come to see me, and I endeavoured to persuade his father to agree to the son's staying away from home. The attempt was fruitless. At length, therefore, forced by necessity, the " prodigal son," whose only fault had been his flight from his parents, returned home. As might have 142 DISLIKE IN THE UNCONSCIOUS 143 been foreseen, things were little better there than before, especially since the events of the previous months were passed over in silence, whereas an open discussion of the matter might have prompted a better understanding. After passing some terrible weeks, the son again left home, and soon found a situation he was well fitted to fill, and after all these adventures he at last felt that he had a chance of an assured subsistence. At length the father handed over the necessary papers. It was expected that the young man, who had now a satis- factory and free livelihood, would be perfectly satisfied. The expectation was strengthened seeing that he was happily in love with a girl. However, he proved to be greatly depressed, and utterly weary of life. Here is what he wrote about the matter : "I am now free, and might be without care-but I don't know whether it is possible for me to enjoy undisturbed happiness for long. Anyhow, the fact is that I loathe one except my best girl. There is something in me that I cannot explain, £ sort of pressure. What sort of pressure ? I don't know, but there it is. Consequently, I am so frightfully alone. All is gloomy within me and without. If this continues I shall go melancholy mad, but I don't know how to prevent it. Can you help me ? " He lived in a distant town. I therefore recommended him to a pastor, who was not indeed a psychoanalyst, but was cordially anxious to help him. The result was not satisfactory. The young man ceased to visit the pastor. I lost sight of him. We can hardly be mistaken in inferring that in this case also there was a deep-rooted need for affection. Since it was unsatisfied, the feeling of antipathy grew out of all proportion. But this does not exclude the likelihood that in the unconscious, too, dislike was at work side by side with love, and it is such cases that we are now considering. I have elsewhere recorded the following case, but it is expedient to consider it here again, for it is extremely characteristic.1 A boy aged about fifteen and a half years tells me that as he falls asleep he always has an anxious feeling that clouds 1 Cf. Die Behandlung schwer erziehbarer und abnormer Kinder, pp. 71 and 77; also Vermeintliche Nullen und angebliche Musterkinder, pp. 8 et seq. 144 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATION! are descending around him and that he is falling into an abyss. By degrees he told me of a number of other anxiety feelings. When he has to cross a bridge he is in a torment of anxiety. He is also timid in the presence of girls. He is extremely anxious about his health ; he believes that he is going to get cancer of the stomach, or to become blind. During the analytical treatment a new form of anxiety appeared, but disappeared as soon as its meaning and origin had been made plain ; he was anxious on account of the existence of an empty space in his body, and life in general filled him with anxiety. He is afraid of burglars, of venomous snakes in his mouth, and of vultures. Apparently these symptoms were matters for an alienist, and I had, in fact, to consult a mental specialist, to get authorisation to treat such a case. But there were other symptoms which were rather matters for a pedagogue. The lad felt himself completely isolated and inwardly desolate ; he cared for no one excepting for one of his schoolfellows who treated him badly and heaped unmerited reproaches on him. His dislike for human beings extended to his parents, who loved their boy and were kind to him, though they did not understand his peculiarities. He detested his teachers, when they were kind to him ; if they were harsh, he liked it. To lie to them barefacedly was a pleasure he often indulged in. The need to be illtreated was to some extent conscious. He suffered from a sense of worthlessness, but towards others he assumed a proud and derisive manner. He was quite serious in his feeling that it would be a good thing if he were to die in a week. His melancholy was thus fairly advanced. He longed for nirvana, for extinction. He denied tE existence of God, although the order and spirituality of the universe had made a deep impression on him, and although he could not bring forward any arguments against the existence of God. He described the world as a merry-go-round. The human soul was Satan's pocket-handkerchief, which had been white until the Evil One had blown his nose on it- and so on. My task was to interpret the hidden meaning of these symptoms, the meaning that was unknown to the conscious ; to throw light upon their origin ; to make the lad understand their nullity; and thus by clear thought and by giving DISLIKE IN THE UNCONSCIOUS 145 a new trend to the hidden wishes to overcome the unconscious inhibition. Here I can only report the results. The boy, who was constitutionally delicate, had before the years of his school life been greatly cosseted at home. When he went to school and was placed under the care of a strict teacher, he was terribly frightened, and therefore gave false answers. The maladroit teacher held him up to mockery before the class, and when the poor little boy burst out crying the master told the others to laugh at the cry-baby. His schoolfellows were only too willing to take the hint, and they continued to make sport of the lad after school hours. Although in later days, at the high school, he was the leading pupil of his class, under the influence of this anxiety he showed himself a dullard, and corporal punishment for his presumed idleness only made him worse. At first the little boy complained to his parents about what was happening. But the father, though hitherto he had done everything to shelter his son, now held that he must not be allowed to become a mother's darling ; it would do the lad good to have the nonsense knocked out of him. Alarmed at this attitude, the little boy withdrew into himself, and said nothing more at home regarding his school experiences. He had no defence against his schoolfellows. Even when they maltreated him, he made no resistance. The parents believed that his silence was a good sign. All they noticed was that long before the hour for school the little boy was continually asking whether it was not yet time to go to school. In secret, however, he had become affected with an obsession, which continued to trouble him from the age of seven to the age of nine. He repeatedly saw himself in imagination burning one of his schoolfellows to death, or torturing her to death in some other way. This was a girl, the prettiest girl in the class, and the one whose mockery hurt him most. The more he tried to rid himself of this fancy, the more it persisted. He told his mother about it (this statement was confirmed by the mother), but that was no help. When he at length succeeded in getting rid of the detestable fantasy, it was only because the place was taken by an equally obsessive idea of atonement, for now he had a fantasy that he was killing himself. He regarded himself 146 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS as thoroughly wicked, and this idea persisted until the time of the analysis. Inspectionist practices with his younger sister also had a bad effect on him. What had made this child ill ? Certainly no one will deny that the obsessive fantasies were morbid. The delicate boy, who had previously been coddled, was alarmed by the cruelty of the master and the schoolfellows ; his sense of self-respect was injured ; his father's refusal to give the desired protection intensified the trouble. It would be wrong to say that the bodily weakness, and the resulting sense of inferiority, were alone to blame. It would be equally one-sided to imagine that the boy's supposition that his parents did not love him, or the before-mentioned experience with the little sister, was solely responsible. We have here one of the numerous instances in which many factors cooperate to shake the whole personality. Only when the individuality is gravely impaired do unconscious motives and fixations come into being, and work pathologically. Often the noxious influences affect only one region of the mind ; but since all the chief mental processes are interlinked, the disturbance spreads to other fields. An inhibition of the love life or of the desire to be loved can disturb the sense of self-respect or even destroy it ; and conversely, a successful love increases the sense of self-respect. The reader will recall the verse : That you love me, makes me of value to myself. The inhibition of the faculty for love persisted until the time of the analysis. This explains the anxiety. (Cf. I John iv, 18). I cannot show here how the lad's love was directed, in a hopeless and undesirable manner, towards his mother and his sister. Anyhow, since it seemed to him that all human beings were harsh and failed to understand him, the boy withdrew his love from them, and buried it in the unconscious. That is why he shut himself away from his fellows ; that is why he felt so lonely and timid. The torment of the first years of school became a need, much as prison life may become a need. The active cruelty which he cherished in the fantasy of burning the little girl to death, led to the passive cruelty, the desire to be ill-used-a desire with which all teachers are only too familiar. That is why the boy detested those who treated him kindly, and loved those DISLIKE IN THE UNCONSCIOUS 147 who treated him ill. The pride and the irony he displayed towards others were to outbid his sense of inferiority. The distorted image he formed of the world was merely an out- ward projection of the distortion in his own mind. The analysis was rich in surprises. The symptoms disappeared after a few hours. At first the impulse which was hunted out of its hiding place beneath the threshold of consciousness, sought some new corner in which to conceal itself; for a time new symptoms appeared-the old symptoms refashioned. For instance, whereas previously the lad had been afraid of going blind, he now suddenly became affected with the feeling that his eyes were enormously large ; and whereas previously he had been quite withdrawn into him- self, he now suddenly conceived the fancy that his limbs were of vast proportions and could stretch round the whole world. But these and other new constructions disappeared as soon as their meaning and their motive had been made plain. Ere long he was able to recognise that his inward relationship towards his fellows, his parents not excepted, was much better ; he yearned for a sympathetic friend, boy or girl; and his disbelief in God was likewise overcome. The melan- choly disappeared. It was, unfortunately, impossible to push the analysis to its end, but the results achieved were extremely satisfactory. To summarise the case, we can see why this pupil learned and could learn so little. Anyone who is tormented by these inward sufferings spends upon his symptoms an enormous part of his mental energy, so that it is impossible for him to use his intellectual faculties normally. It follows that no teacher can form a proper judgment concerning the supposed idleness of a pupil without taking into account the mental state as a whole. " Inattentiveness " must often be interpreted as the outcome of a dissociation of consciousness into two spheres between which the normal link is lacking-as a dissociation between the conscious and the unconscious. In the foregoing case, the boy showed no sign of a strong hostility towards his parents ; this impulse remained locked in the unconscious until the analysis had disclosed the former motive for hatred, and had thus deprived it of its force. At most he was concerned about his longing for a normal affection towards them. Outwardly his conduct had 148 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS been exemplary ; and he had been most careful to avoid showing any hostility towards his father and mother. On the other hand, his conduct towards his teachers was occasionally insubordinate. Driven by the pleasure it gave him to be maltreated, he was grossly impudent sometimes, so that he earned severe punishment. When one of the teachers, puzzled by the enigmatic conduct of the otherwise exemplary pupil, withheld punishment, this remarkable pupil was over- whelmed, and was far more distressed than if severe chastise- ment had been inflicted. The explosive insubordination increased the impression in his own mind that he was a thoroughly depraved being, one in whom this or that additional offence was a matter of little moment. In reality, however, beneath these aberrations, exceptional talents were slumbering. Of course love for the parents was always present somewhere in the unconscious, but was so strongly repressed that it did not, so far as I am aware, display itself even symbolically. Only in a yearning which never actually manifested itself as a definite feeling of affection, can we detect certain stirrings of the child's loving impulses. A notable hostility towards the father is shown in the following observation. A man in the middle forties has, among other symptoms, a nocturnal hallucination which dates from the years of boyhood. From time to time-about eight times in all during the last two or three years-he has been awakened from sleep by a loud knocking sound thrice repeated. When the history was investigated, it appeared that this hallucination dated from some supposed ghostly visitation which happened when he was about fifteen. At that time, during the night, the boy used often to hear quick footsteps outside the door, as if some one were approaching in slippers. Then came a noise of fingers groping at the door, until the latch suddenly rose and fell. Several times, the door actually opened. The boy, greatly alarmed, roused his brother who slept in the same room, and drew the latter's attention to the ghostly visitation. The brother then watched, too, and the lads vied with one another in their anxiety. These experiences tortured them both. I will begin with an analysis of the symptoms, which I studied as closely as possible. DISLIKE IN THE UNCONSCIOUS 149 [Some one in slippers is approaching ; what do we imagine the " some one " to be like ?] A sinister being. [In slippers.] The teacher X, who was a neighbour of ours at the time. He was also my teacher in various subjects. Since I was one of his worst pupils he complained of me to my father. I hated him, for I regarded him as unjust. Besides, I hated almost all the teachers, most of whom were my " most intimate enemies." [Swift footsteps outside the door.] Perhaps it was my father himself, although it seemed to me impossible that it could really be he. When he was excited, he walked very quickly. [The groping hands outside the door.] As if some one were trying to find the latch. Now I think of a servantmaid. Now of the servantmaid who seduced me about that time. At the very beginning of the develop- mental period, the sexual played a great part in my life. I often used to say to myself that I should have done a great deal more had I not busied myself with such things. These associations were subjected to a closer examination. The burden of school life pressed heavily on the boy. In especial, he found the learning of foreign languages very difficult, although subsequently he assimilated them quite easily, and in general displayed marked talent. Especially disturbing was the fact that the before-mentioned neighbour, who had a dislike to the lad, complained of him to his father, and thereby earned him a flogging. The father was an extremely violent, not to say brutal man, who had no thought of showing affection, but whose only idea was to instil fear, and who insisted that his children were to regard him as a model in every respect. When the school reports were unfavourable, these invariably led to a whipping. The mother had early procured a separation. One of the earliest experiences of the analysand was that of the mother running away from the father and screaming for help ; after she had run past her little boy, who was then five years old, she was brutally maltreated by her husband in a neighbouring room. In the earliest years, the boy loved his mother, but 150 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS subsequently she became estranged from him. A great impression was made by the way in which she was wont to tell her children ghost stories, and in this she was ably supported by one of the servants. Allusion must further be made to the first of all the experiences which the subject remembers clearly. The two older boys had had a fierce quarrel. The little one, then three years old, saw one of his brothers, in a positive fury, seize a great table-knife ; the other tried to run away, but the knife was thrown at him, and he sank bleeding on his knees. Thereupon the aggressor vanished, and kept away from home until hunger drove him back again. We see that the analysand had no satisfactory experiences of love in his home life. On the other hand, in this remark- ably gifted boy there developed a passionate ambition, and a strongly commercial spirit. Since he was in bad odour with his teachers (obviously, in the unconscious, there was a condensation of the teachers with the father), he was unable as a pupil to gratify the need for being esteemed. Conse- quently, his hostility to his teachers, and above all to the neighbour previously mentioned, was increased. We cannot be surprised, therefore, that a tendency towards cruelty became marked in the boy. It gave him great pleasure to ill-use cats and rabbits. Later he repressed this tendency so markedly that it enraged him to see an animal tormented, and he was never able to inflict corporal punishment on his own children ; but in his dreams, he whips children on the rump, and this gives him voluptuous satisfaction. Such a fantasy is common in persons who have been flogged in childhood. In the imagination, the active and passive roles of the painful situation of old days are reversed. (Freund, Ein Kind wird geschlagen, " Jahreszeitschrift fur Psycho- analyse," V. pp. 151 et seq.) We now know the chief determinants of the hallucination of ghosts. An additional factor is that the previous tenant of the house had hanged himself there, and that one of the lad's brothers, infected with superstition by the mother, declared that he had heard trunks being pulled across the floor, and no one had dared to see what was really going on. The most important factor, however, was the dread of the detested teacher, the father, and the servantmaid-behind DISLIKE IN THE UNCONSCIOUS 151 the last of whom is hidden another servantmaid who has aroused an intense internal need. Decisive here, as in the case of most anxiety hallucinations, is a sexual wish. The sexually over-excited boy longs for the presence of the servant- maid, although in the conscious he rejects the idea. This conflict, in conjunction with the other factors previously enumerated, and above all in conjunction with the super- stitious mood that has been fostered by the mother, leads to the compromise of a hallucination. The primitive sexual impulse, and also conscience, certainly play their part. The former serves to bring about the presence of the desired person in a ghost-like form ; whilst, thanks to conscience, the boy is impotent when the spectre enters. In so far as the enigmatic and sinister spectre represents the teacher and the father, the hallucination represents an additional determinative wish- fulfilment. The lad, who is only too well aware of the delights of being tormented, enjoys a gruesome pleasure in allowing the dreaded men to come. (We need not here enquire, to what extent a sexual factor is involved in this pleasure.) It is noteworthy that this boy, who is continually suffering from secret anxieties, displays remarkable courage in his intercourse with other boys. He is extremely pugnacious, and is dreaded as a boxer. He challenges much older and stronger lads to fisticuffs, and meets his opponent without a shadow of fear. Our example is too complicated for us to be able to say to what extent sexuality creates the hallucinations, and how far hatred is at work. Only when we observe a great number of instances can we ascertain to what extent one or the other factor is causally operative. But this much is certain, that the strongly hostile attitude towards the teachers and towards the majority of mankind is closely connected with the distur- bance of the love sentiment, and that the character is thereby strongly influenced. Manifestly, too, the impulse towards cruelty, which was at first consciously indulged, and subse- quently repressed and detested, but which still crops up in the unconscious, was closely connected with the love inhibitions of the earlier years. It may be well to point out that the analysand became an enthusiastic disciple of Tolstoi. Never- theless, despite an excellent disposition, great powers of will, 152 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS and keenness of intelligence, he made little attempt to realise the teachings of the Russian sage, and occasionally laughed at them. To illustrate the multiformity of the paths which the childish love sentiment may enter when the normal develop- ment is impeded, I may give some additional examples. First of all I will report the case of an artist, a man about thirty years of age, who believed himself to be in excellent health, though he suffered from time to time from depression, and very trifling hysterical symptoms, such as headache, palpitation, stiff neck, etc. A study of his artistic works showed that they fell into two quite distinct groups. In the first group, which were naturalist in character, were to be found likenesses of real objects, especially, close likenesses of human beings. As far as I could judge, they were admirably painted, extremely lively, quite masterly, but either weak, effeminate, and sentimental, or else brutal. The paintings of the other group, which the artist himself spoke of as subjective, were of such a character that it was really difficult to tell what he was driving at. For instance, there would be a straight line out of which three smaller lines would sprout like branches ; on the other side was a blue circular area ; this was supposed to represent a woman. I should never have imagined it to be a portrait. As far as I was concerned, most of the works of this group presented an absolutely unmeaning chaos of colour, which had no aesthetic influence on me at all, although many admirers of expressionist art declared that the pictures gave them considerable aesthetic satisfaction. I have never seen better examples of " mad " painting. But the artist himself was intensely delighted with these works, whereas he was disgusted with the formally correct pictures of the other group, which filled me and most ordinary observers with admiration. To the artist they were horrid daubs. He only painted them because he had to produce what the public wanted-but still, he thought them quite equal to those of the most renowned portrait painters. What concerns us in especial is this subject's attitude towards life and towards humanity-at-large. The analysand felt himself to be continually in danger of an attack, and could not understand how there could be anyone who was not DISLIKE IN THE UNCONSCIOUS 153 always on the defensive. He detested the State, society, and the politicians who brought about wars, although he had not himself any great horror of war. He was utterly opposed to the whole extant system, and especially opposed to all authority. He often quarrelled with his acquaintances, and these quarrels were apt to lead to permanent breaches. A profound contempt for his own performances alternated with exalted plans. I can give only a brief extract of the analysis.1 In his dreams, the artist has always imagined himself to be pursued. The earliest dream he remembers, which he thinks must belong to his first year, or at latest to his second year, ran as follows : "I dreamed that a huge bear, which stood as high as the counterpane, clambered up on to my bed and towered over me. I was filled with dread." The analysis gave the following results : [A huge bear comes to me.] Obviously the father. The bear had my father's chin with a beard. Above the chin or the nose he was not visible, for this was in the shadow. [The bear.] My nurse had told me that the bear was the most dangerous of all animals. My father had a little bronze bear. My father used to go to sleep after dinner, and before doing so used to put the bear upon the table, to keep us quiet. I was terribly afraid of the bear. These associations left no doubt that the anxiety dream represented an attack by the father. The father had been a man of violence, one who was accustomed to insist upon his own way with inexorable obstinacy, and thus came in frequent conflict with wife and children. The analysand was on bad terms with him up to the age of twenty, then he made it up, and henceforward father and son had been good friends. What had been a dislike for the father, now took the form of a hatred of all authority. At the age of about ten he had another dream of pursuers, which made a great impression upon his mind, and which was dreamed several times in succession. Indians invaded his bedroom from the veranda, the bedroom in which he was 1 The full account will be found in my book, Der psychologische und biologischc Untergrund des Expressionismus, 1920. 154 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS sleeping with his brother. Here is an abbreviated report of the analysis : [Indians rushed in from the veranda.] There was a cab-rank in front of the house. The horses were sorry old screws. Probably the Indians had some connexion with them. We used to throw little balls down from the windows and from the veranda to startle the horses. No doubt that is why the Indians climbed up. [The veranda.] There I used, with my brother, to feed the rabbits. Perhaps he was one of the Indians, perhaps not. [The brother.] Perhaps he was the evil spirit who had conjured up the Indians. I was on very bad terms with him ; we were always quarrelling. Subsequently, he shot himself. He was con- tinually protesting against what my sister and I did. I always identified him with my father, although he was not like my father. It is probable that I was always so angry with him because I had so much to put up with from my father. We had made wooden swords and shields, and used to fight in our room. In general, the room was full of horrors. For instance, behind the bed we had an aquarium. Out of this salamanders used to escape some- times. We used to find them later, dried up beneath the carpet. This made me feel sorry. I thought that the Indians were the wicked souls of the salamanders. In this same salamander basin, the moon once shone. (We shall return to this later.) The historical determinants of the dream would seem to be : A boyish prank played upon the poor old cab-horses ; hateful quarrels with the brother, who was identified with the father ; terrors concerning dried salamanders. Thus the interpretation runs: Since I have done wrong to animals and to my brother who is like my father, I am in danger from savages. The Indians represent a sinister punitive force, behind which, as in the case of the bear, the father obviously lurks. But also the brother, and an elemental power (the souls of the salamanders). From the assured data of dream psychology we may infer that the dreamer has a longing to be attacked. Behind the anxiety there is a pleasure factor, which the dreamer turns DISLIKE IN THE UNCONSCIOUS 155 to account in his fantasy of Indians, as in his fantasy of the bear. At the time of the dream last analysed, the lad was much affected by a day-dream, which later had marked influence upon his artistic activities. When in his twelfth year, he had the feeling that the moon was constricting his body, as if to cut his thorax in twain. The part of his body upon which the moon was shining did not belong any more to the other part. Here are the chief associations obtained in connexion with this day-dream : [The moon shines on part of my body.] If the moonlight no longer falls on this part, it will become separated. No doubt that is what the Indians are waiting for. The door leading into my parents' room. Here were forged plans which concerned me. Everything is a menace, not only the moon. It shines upon all, upon the heart and the upper part of the body, indeed into the heart. On the other hand, the forehead and the neck are dark. Often during conversation-for instance, just now when you were talking to me-I get a stiff neck. This used to happen to me in my school days. As a child I was fond of playing with the moonshine upon the coverlet of my bed. I am certain that already at that time the part of my body that the moon was shining upon was in ecstasy, and was detached from the rest of the body. Ah, now I remember. When my father shouted at me, I screwed my neck round anxiously and looked at him fixedly. I think of a definite situation. Once he was standing at the door, and he shouted at me about some- thing. I don't remember what it was, but I recall his saying to me later that I must not always hang on to mother's apron-string. I have a definite feeling that the sense of being cut in two was connected with my father's shouting at me. [The moonshine once more.] In connexion with moonshine I recall my mother. She was frightened when my father shouted. I identified myself with her, and for many years I was terribly frightened when my father shouted at her. (The identification with the mother is certainly most important.) We see that we are concerned with the attitude towards 156 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS father and mother. The neck, which is not illuminated by the moon, recalls a scene of terror with the father, to whose shouting all the feeling seems to go back. Obviously, then, the moonlight is a symbol of the gentle mother as in Uhland's poem "The Singer's Curse "-" The queen, gentle and mild, as if the full moon were shining.'' The part that the moon does not shine on represents, as previously said, the Indians, behind whom we detect, among other things, the father. The stiff neck is not merely a confirmation and exaggeration of the terrified attitude towards the father, but, as we can confidently infer from analogous instances, a symbolical expression of the " stiff-neckedness '' (obstinacy) with which the subject reproaches his father, but which he himself automatically simulates. Our interpretation of the moonshine fantasy is irre- futably confirmed by a number of additional experiences, of which only a few can be recorded here. The artist divides his face into two distinct portions. One of these embraces the chin, the mouth, and the nose ; the other consists of the upper half of the face. The lower part is distressing to him ; he feels it to be " compromising and revealing." The mouth, which is in reality quite normal, is something he would like to hide. In this connexion he recalls that when he was about twenty years old his father exclaimed to him : "If you were more energetic you would not have such bloated lips." We may remember that the bear's face in the dream was divided into two portions, one illuminated by the lamp and the other lying in the shadow. The illuminated part was the lower part of the face, which was " quite definitely " like the father's. Thus the son identifies the lower half of the face, the part which made so powerful an impression on him in his earliest reminiscences, with that of his father. Even more convincing is the remarkable fact that in most of the subjective portraits painted by this artist the face is divided into two very unequal portions, one containing a well-rounded eye, and the other a crescentic eye. The former represents the sun, and expresses the harsh and unlovable character traits which are ascribed to the father. The crescent-shaped eye, which represents the moon, continually calls up in the associations the gentle and amiable lineaments of the mother. The harsh and masculine, on the one hand, DISLIKE IN THE UNCONSCIOUS 157 and the gentle and feminine, on the other, are strongly contrasted likewise throughout the analysand's whole life ; hence the great aggressiveness, the hatred for all existing order and authority, the artistic anarchism, the ultra- naturalistic caricatures ; on the other hand, the softness and sentimentality of his sensibilities, and his somewhat effeminate artistic performances. This polarisation of tendencies which ought to be conjoined has rent the analysand's life in sunder. That is why he can never produce anything which gives him full satisfaction ; that is why he oscillates between depression and exaltation. In every one of the naturalistic works of art, only a portion of his being is at work, and is at work here in grossly exaggerated fashion, and with forcible repression of the other part of his nature. When, in his artistic work, the two tendencies clash-the tendency of assimilation to the father and the tendency of assimilation to the mother-reality is rent into fragments, and the picture assumes an expressionist character, being a reflection of the conflict in the artist's own soul, with the maximum exaggera- tion of the antagonists repectively representing hatred of the father and love of the mother. The upshot is simply carica- ture-the derivative meaning of " caricature " being some- thing which is charged or laden. The delight in expressionist portraiture is biologically explained in this way, that thereby the painter is able in his pictures to give symbolical satisfaction to the distressing tendencies, to the evil and cruel lusts, of his unconscious. Consequently, only one who is himself a prey to similar hatred, and is torn by it in like manner, could take pleasure in such works. In this artist's life up to the present time we can see very plainly how the love sentiment of the child, transformed into hatred, has, operating from the realm of the unconscious, controlled the whole life. We must note that the outward reconciliation with the father has done little, if anything, to diminish the influence of the repressed hatred. In the pictures, the old hatred blazes ; and in the detestation of the State, politicians, society, God, etc., we find the expression of the attitude of mind which was created by the child's conflict with the father. It would be impossible, in these case records, which 158 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS however detailed must be strongly condensed, to disclose the abundance of possibilities which lie open to the evolution of the love sentiment in childhood. The paths are innumerable. Moreover, the love sentiment of childhood never appears in isolated fashion. Consequently, anyone who wishes to give a comprehensive description of it would have to embrace the entire mental life of childhood within the ambit of his investi- gations. But in order to form a satisfactory judgment con- cerning this little-known province of psychology, the reader must at least be made acquainted with a number of characteristic instances. I obtained abundant material from a youth twenty-three years of age who sought my help on account of manifold troubles. He was out of tune with life, and could indeed find no value in existence owing to his lack of success. His days succeeded one another sadly and hopelessly. In inter- course with his fellows he was shy, and he displayed vacillation and uncertainty in his conduct. Left to his own devices, he was quite helpless. He frequently changed his occupation, only to be convinced after a brief time that the change had been a mistake, and he thereupon adopted some new form of activity. His erotic life caused him great trouble. Inas- much as in this section I do not propose to go into details concerning the sexual manifestations of love in children and its results, I shall here refer only to two notable disturbances in this patient. The young man's sexual impulse was entirely directed towards little girls (paedophilia). His most ardent sexual desires turned towards them, whereas grown girls left him quite indifferent. I must further mention that he suffered from diurnal emissions, on account of which for the last eight years he had been treated locally by two uro- logists, for these symptoms caused him great excitement, and made him so hypochondriacal that he was unable to work. He described this as the worst of all his troubles. He had platonic intimacies with woman older than himself, especially with those who were on bad terms with their husbands. His attitude in religious matters was remarkable. He never had any religious instruction, for his father forbade this. For the last four and a half years, on his own initiative, he had attended Catholic churches, and for the last two years he had wanted to be received into the Catholic church. DISLIKE IN THE UNCONSCIOUS 159 Nevertheless, he is by no means convinced that God exists, and he repudiates the idea of transubstantiation. Still, the charm that Catholic ceremonial exercises on him is so great that he devotes himself to it with extreme ardour. Protestantism, likewise, appeals to him in many ways, although less strongly than Catholicism. A Protestant pastor was the first human being who enlisted his affections-it was about four years ago. This pastor aroused his enthusiasm for Kierkegaard, Carlyle, Eucken, and Windelband. But the desire to become a Catholic continually grew stronger, though he was unable to find reasons for this step which seemed to him adequate. He himself regarded as invalid the arguments from the unity of the church, from the fact that Roman Catholic priests were wholly devoted to the church, or from the practice of kneeling for prayer. Once only had he gone to confession, and he then made up his mind to be instructed as soon as possible concerning Catholic doctrines. Nothing but fear of public opinion had hitherto held him back from going over to Rome, for he declared that he was not deterred by his repudiation of certain doctrines of the church, nor even by his doubt in the existence of God. In moments of religious exaltation, he had an intuitive conviction of the things which his reason rejected. Nevertheless, his religious ardour did not suffice to overcome his weariness of life. This young man's earlier history showed that his love sentiment in childhood had been exposed to extraordinarily unfavourable influences. His father had been a man of great intellectual force, and highly respected, but a confirmed drunkard, and of cold disposition. An especially strong impression had been made on the lad one Christmas Eve, when his father returned home completely drunk, and with his clothing soiled, two hours too late for the Christmas tree, and had had to be put to bed by his wife and son. The father would often strike the boy for trifling causes, so that the latter was cowed, and inwardly felt hatred for the father. When the son went out walking with comrades of his own age, he found it very difficult to be on frank terms with them, for he was continually suffering from a sense of inferiority. He said to himself : " My father does not think it worth while to go out walking with me, so that obviously I am of no account." Two years ago the father had died. The doctor must have 160 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS been aware of the tragedy of the father's drunkenness, for, to his own horror, when announcing the death to the son he had said : "I congratulate you-I mean, I express my sympathy ! " As long as the body remained in the house, the boy dreaded that it would rise and make away with him. This fantasy must, almost certainly, have been a self- inflicted punishment on account of repressed delight at the death, or perhaps for having entertained secret wishes for his father's death. The mother had not won her son's love sufficiently to bring healing to the boy's mind. It would be quite wrong to suppose that the development of the love sentiment in this boy had taken the course it took solely on account of the relationships with the parents. The mental life constitutes an organism, and the details can only be deduced from a study of the whole. Among the influences which acted with especial strength upon the analysand we must count sexuality. When he was eleven years old, during one of the school lessons, the boy had first practised masturba- tion. This was followed by a strong moral reaction, which prevented any repetition of the practice ; until two years later, when climbing the pole in the gymnasium, he had erotic sensations which no conscientious scruples could restrain. At about this time he had his first experience of sexual intercourse with a servantmaid. His alarm at the possible consequences prevented any further relations with this girl, until a new servant came, with whom he also became intimate. Whilst these two delinquencies aroused intense feelings of remorse and alarm, various improprieties with children did not trouble his conscience. When playing hide-and-seek he lustfully cuddled up to a little girl who had no suspicion of what he was doing. With erotic design, he would rig up an apparatus for a game of tight-rope walking, using trestles and planks for the purpose, and would then seize the opportunity of spying under the petticoats of girls playing at the game. This caused great sexual excitement, but the inspectionist practice seems to have had no evil results. Since his experi- ences with the servantmaids had left dread and disgust, his whole sexual impulse was now directed towards little girls. Previously there had been no such restriction of the impulse. Undoubtedly, one of the causes of this development was that DISLIKE IN THE UNCONSCIOUS 161 he was himself a weakling, and remained effeminate, and therefore hoped to be more successful with children. The danger of his paedophilia is shown by the association with which he reacted to the idea of this sexual anomaly : "It is much easier to rape a child ! '' Since the restriction of his sexual desire to little girls could not provide any gratification for the impulse, he had recourse to what are termed diurnal emissions. He consulted a number of medical men. One of them prescribed sedobrol; a neurologist is said to have advised him to masturbate. Two urologists gave him local injections for eight years ; one of them even advised a removal of the caput gallinaginis. The psychological investigation showed, however, that sexual fantasies in which grown women played a part, and stimula- tion by the bed covering, had regularly preceded these emissions. It was easy to recognise that the young man did not know how to sublimate his sexual energies, and that for several years he had succeeded in humbugging the doctors- for he had really been a masturbator all the time. We can now understand our hypochondriac's self-reproaches. These circumstances also exercised a strong influence upon the religious development. The young man, who had been brought up without any religious training, had four-and- a-half years earlier made the acquaintance of a Protestant pastor who introduced to his notice the writings of Carlyle, Kierkegaard, Eucken, and Windelband. Joining in prayer with this pastor, the lad was so much moved that his whole body trembled. Henceforward he prayed regularly, although not satisfied as to the reality of God's existence. Soon, however his sympathies were directed towards Roman Catholicism. The impetus here arose from his acquaintance- ship with a family of persons living across the way, among whom the most intimate affection was displayed in the relationships between parents and children. He noticed that the little girls would run with delight to meet their father, and that this highly-respected man delighted to sport with his children ; this aroused intense yearning in the young man ; and when once through the open window he saw one of the girls kneeling in prayer, he was filled with a painful ecstasy, and he longed for similar experiences. He followed the father and the children to their church, whose artistic 162 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS beauty filled him with wonder and veneration. What seemed still more noteworthy to him was that this much-admired man humbly knelt down in prayer. Thereupon the youth, hungering for life, began to read Catholic devotional books. He found that they described the sexual life as unclean, and commended celibacy as the higher life. This greatly appealed to him-precisely because, through the repression of his love sentiment, he had become incompetent for sexual relations with fully-grown women. His own weakness was, in fact, glorified. The priest would become for him the desired father-substitute; in the Virgin Mary he would find the ideal mother, who would give to him what his earthly mother refused. The descriptions of hell appealed to him strongly, for in his anxiety ideas he possessed a hell within himself, and could not fail to regard the overcoming of this hell as the turning-point of his life. There can be no doubt that his unfavourable relationships with his father and to a less degree with his mother, were accountable for the anxiety, for the weariness of life, for the morbid deviation of the conscious sexual desire towards children, for the inclination towards Catholicism, and for other symptoms which I need not describe. The analysis ran a rather sluggish course. The symptoms yielded slowly. After thirteen months of continuous treat- ment which had occupied seventeen sittings, I was able to dismiss him as almost completely cured. The trifling vestiges of disorder that still persisted at the close of the course, disappeared subsequently of themselves. Still, there remained a certain inclination to seek advice from authoritative persons in cases when it would have been better if he could have formed a decision from his own insight. Four-and-a-half years after the beginning of the treatment, I could be assured that health had been fully restored. But there still was a certain inclination to look upon the sometime analyst as a leader whose advice could spare the subject the need for thinking things out for himself and coming to a decision on his own account. When I refused to play this role, the young man was quite able to manage his own affairs. He still remained rather infirm of will. It would be easy for me to adduce a hundred additional DISLIKE IN THE UNCONSCIOUS 163 examples. But this would only weary my readers. These additional cases would serve to confirm the conviction that love for the parents is of immeasurable importance in the spiritual development of children, but that it is never the only important factor in that development. We shall see what strange channels may be sought out by the stream of the love sentiment of children when a normal course is inhibited- just as happens in the physical world when some hindrance prevents the waters of a stream from following their normal channel, so that they burst their banks and flood the fields, carrying destruction, arousing fear, and spreading disaster. We shall, however, defer these general disquisitions to a later stage of the enquiry, when we shall have secured a more comprehensive view of the developments of love in children. If the analysis digs deeply enough, behind the hatred which, operating from the cover of the unconscious, sets its traps and prepares its pitfalls, we shall always find ill- starred love. It is rare for children not to receive a certain amount of tenderness. This tenderness stimulates the instinctive demand for love ; and if subsequently disappoint- ments occur, the love is transformed into hate, which conscientious children then repress as wrong. And yet, behind such violent dislike there often lurks so strong a liking that the conscious life is controlled by it, and has to play a contradictory duplex role. This will be proved in the next section. 2. Dislike predominant in the Conscious and Love PREDOMINANT IN THE UNCONSCIOUS. Only since we have become aware of the factors of ideas, feelings, and volitions that lie beneath the threshold of con- sciousness, have we been able to understand a number of phenomena which are inexplicable as manifestations of love alone or of hatred alone. Among the most remarkable of such phenomena are the cases in which the consciousness exhibits great hostility towards the father or the mother, whilst the unconscious translates this sentiment into a powerful love. I have already given an instructive instance of this. Here are brief accounts of similar cases of the kind. A fifteen detests her stepfather, who is a drunkard 164 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS and ill-uses his family. He often beats his wife, whereupon the child passionately espouses her mother's cause. The girl is very pretty, and he is sometimes affectionate towards her, and wants her to kiss him ; she refuses, or complies with intense dislike. But every night, in her sleep, the girl finds her way to the umbrella-stand in the dark passage, and awakens there with screams of anxiety, which call her alarmed parents to her side. In the analysis, she was asked to think of the umbrella-stand and its surroundings. She promptly said : " I was often afraid that a man would jump out on me there." She described this unknown man as like her step- father, and added that her stepfather used to put his umbrella there. Those unfamiliar with the methods and results of psychoanalysis will not understand this reminiscence, and will perhaps wonder why such a trifle is recorded. But those who are acquainted with the symbolism of the unconscious will have no doubt as to what this umbrella signifies. (Cf. my book, Die ftsychanalytische Methode, p. 274.) To understand this case we must be aware of the signifi- cance of the morbid anxiety. It has been demonstrated that every anxiety is the expression of a secret wish. (The reader will do well to look up the heading " Anxiety " in the index of my book just mentioned.) The little sleep- walker-who also suffers from a stammer, and from a terror of beetles-detests her stepfather, and deliberately avoids him, for she has suffered much at his hands. Sometimes she has had to be awakened from sleep and taken to a neighbour's house, when the stepfather has come home in a drunken frenzy. But the sexual desires, which have been repressed from the conscious owing to critical experiences and un- desirable stimuli in the parental bedroom in early childhood,1 are still directed towards the person of the father. Since they cannot be openly manifested, they appear in a mask. During sleep, when the interference of the conscious is not to be dreaded, they lead to an unmistakable action. The child walks in her sleep to the place which has acquired a peculiar significance because there is kept the umbrella of the man who is detested but secretly loved ; and by her cries she calls this man to her in his nightshirt. We can hardly be wrong in supposing that the girl, whose sexual nature is over-excited, is ' Die psychanalytische Methode, p. 117. DISLIKE IN THE UNCONSCIOUS 165 affected with that extremely common unconscious inclination which Freud has called the nuclear complex of all neuroses, an incestuous desire for the father. If anyone should object that this inference is overstrained, we must point out that it harmonises with a large number of analogous observations. I give only one example, and will refer to a similar case in my book on the psychoanalytic method (p. 230). Let me show how in the garden and the wilderness of the love sentiment of children, the experiences of the earlier generation may be transferred to the younger, and may undergo in the latter a strange resurrection. One day a physician sent to me a girl of fourteen, who for three months had suffered from hysterical disturbances. She is unable to hold anything firmly; her hands are as if paralysed, but twitch automatically. She cannot keep her legs still, and when she is walking in the street, despite her best endeavours she continually moves towards the side of the road. When doing this she has the feeling that one of her legs has grown long and stiff. For a few weeks, on medical advice, she has been kept away from school. Although there was some improvement, a cure did not result, and when she was sent back to school the symptoms recurred in full force. There were disturbing dreams of snakes and foxes. I had a private interview with the mother, and here is a summary of what I learned. Shortly before the outbreak of the illness, an indecent assault had been made on the child. A schoolfellow, a boy who had previously made improper advances to her, lay in wait for her in a wood, and stripped himself with a sexual intent. Three years earlier-the mother admitted this on my questioning her-the stepfather had made an indecent assault on the child while her mother was in hospital. Only the girl's desperate resistance had prevented the consummation of the design. Soon afterwards the man came home drunk in the small hours with one of his boon companions, and compelled the terrified girl to prepare coffee, striking her because she did not get it ready quickly enough. Then he locked himself up with his visitor in the bedroom, and from the obscene talk and laughter the little girl knew that sexual excesses were being practised. The interpretation of the symptoms is easy for those who are 166 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS familiar with the symbolic language of hysteria. The leg which the girl feels to have become long and stiff is obviously connected with the exhibitionism of the schoolboy, and constitutes a hysterical fulfilment of the wish that so many girls have to be a boy. Anyone who is surprised that a bodily disturbance can give expression to a wish, need only be told that this connexion has been noted on countless occasions. It is always a secret wish, one that has been repressed from the conscious. In this case I can put the matter plainly. The patient would like to have the bodily characteristics of the boy; she promptly represses the wish as improper ; it therefore recurs in a symbolic form, in the feeling that she has a long and stiff leg. (Cf. Die psychanalytische Methode, pp. 357 et seq.). Again the paralysis and the twitching of the hands, the dreams of snakes and foxes (op. cit., p. 245 et seq.), are certainly referable to the same wish. The necessity to leave the middle of the road and go to the side, symbolises the repressed wish to leave the straight path prescribed by her conscience. I did not think it necessary to explain to this child the precise significance of the stiffness of the leg and the other symptoms. I was content to tell her that there was obviously a connexion between these symptoms and the two indecent assaults. I told her that she had been on the alert during the danger, and that therefore nothing serious had happened to her ; she could be quite at ease. The same afternoon the paralysis disappeared and never returned. In this example, as in almost all the others, we must not look upon the liking for or the hostility to the parents in isolation. The sentiment is so closely connected with the rest of the life that we must always look upon the course of the life as a whole. We are in the same position as a student of natural history who wishes to pay special attention to some particular plant organs, such as the anthers. This method of observation offers certain advantages, but we cannot in the case of every individual plant describe the whole life history and the totality of all its processes. We therefore restrict ourselves to the most important influences and effects. But we still have to deal with the main point. We wish to discover the secret love hidden behind the hatred dominant DISLIKE IN THE UNCONSCIOUS 167 in the conscious. It would be too bold a supposition to main- tain that our little paralytic secretly loved the stepfather who was extremely repulsive to her, although such an assumption would not seem false to anyone well acquainted with the peculiarities of the unconscious. Let me, however, turn to consider the child's mother. After the investigation, I asked her to enlighten the child regarding sexual matters, to do so in a motherly manner, and in one worthy of the moral importance of the subject. Especially she must take care to avoid describing the sexual life in general as unclean, or to imply that individual men were unclean in their views. To my astonishment, the mother rejected the proposal, saying : " In my eyes everything sexual, even in married life, is intensely hateful and vulgar." The lady's second husband is a debauched and degenerate man. She divorced her first husband, who was no better than the present one. How was it that this woman, who is intelligent and of excellent disposi- tion, came to marry such reprobates ? Considering her ability and charm, she must have had the choice among many wooers. And yet twice she chose reprobates. The solution of the riddle is simple. When I asked her about the character of her father, she told me that he had really done to her what her second husband had wanted to do to the stepdaughter. She hated her father with a fierce intensity, and yet twice in succession she married a father- substitute ! Her unconscious had a fixation on the man, who, from one point of view, had caused her so much suffering, but who, from the other point of view, at any rate in the first years of life, had shown an excess of love for her. There can be no doubt that the sexual wish banned from the conscious found expression in the two unhappy marriages, for untamed sensuality was the characteristic which her two husbands had in common with her father. If, in the choice of husband, the unconscious had done this woman an evil turn, it was able to do good service to my little patient. To help the mother to enlighten her daughter, I lent her the book Am Quell des Lebens published by the Diirer Society. She read it, but could not overcome her repugnance. The unconscious helped her out of a difficulty, for it led the mother to forget to lock up the book. The daughter read it all through in one night, and expressed her 168 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS gratitude for the instruction she derived from it. Now the nervous disquietude passed away, and the whole demeanour altered for the better. Such examples in which the unconscious love sentiment in children takes a direction opposed to the demands of conscience and reason, are by no means rare. In most cases, as in the one we are now considering, the unconscious impulse induces complete blindness, so that even intelligent persons fail to see the obvious defects in the individual desired by the unconscious, despite the warnings of well-intentioned associates. Moreover, I have known cases in which, not- withstanding a clear recognition of the unsuitability of the man or woman who is loved, so passionate an inclination may persist as to lead to marriage. Or if, as may happen from compliance with parental wishes, the person thus infatuated marries another than the beloved object, inclina- tion may be lacking, and the affections may turn towards some one resembling the father, who perhaps is altogether inferior in worth to the husband. Less obvious are the indications of a secret love in the attempt to mimic the father or mother to whose behaviour the subject objects. But it often happens that a young person will thus copy precisely those characteristics of a parent that arouse the intensest dislike. The parent is imitated, not only in good things, but in those that are repugnant, and I do not believe that this would happen unless there were a strong unconscious inclination towards the person who is imitated. Even in the unconscious, love and hate may often exist side by side. I once treated a man about forty years of age, who since childhood had ceased to have any fondness for his mother. She was a hard woman, one who had been hardened in a severe struggle for the means of subsistence. Thoroughly materialistic in her mode of life, she was nevertheless characterised by a religiosity which was pushed to the pitch of superstition, and was based upon the dread of punishment and the hope of reward. Being the slave of the occupation by which she earned a living, she kept her own children under the yoke from which she herself suffered. Directly they came back from school, they were set to work, put to hard physical DISLIKE IN THE UNCONSCIOUS 169 labour greatly beyond their powers, until supper, and after supper far on into the night-writing and making up the business accounts. Especially dreaded in this respect was Sunday. Worst of all, scoldings and whippings were continual. Without any apparent reason, the children would be railed at, would have their ears boxed, or their hair pulled, so that the son was often reduced to despair. But the mother cared little about their school work, and was indifferent to bad reports, so long as the reports concerning conduct and religion were favourable. Naturally, therefore, the boy was not diligent at school. Although later he showed considerable talent, while at school he was always at the lower end of the class. He became more and more backward, but this caused him no distress. Continually, however, he trembled before his mother. He adopted her superstitious outlooks. She could not cut up a loaf of bread without signing the cross over it ; she regarded mice, crows, and the like, as the bearers of omens ; the belief in portents, ghostly visitations, divine interventions of a punitive character, showed how anxiety dominated her mind. Nor did she refrain from terrifying her children with tales of a spectre (known as the " Bohlimann ") that haunted the cellar. When my patient was six or seven years old, he had been afraid to walk alone in front of the house, for he then had to pass the cellar door. His greatest delight was attending Sunday school. The whole week he would look forward ardently to this hour, which transported him into a realm of happiness and delight. One day, when he had been sent out of the house, and was equally afraid of the punishments of his mother and of the mischief that might be done him by the Bohlimann, he began to pray that God would help him in his need. Suddenly, to his astonishment, he found that he was in front of the house door without knowing how he had come there, and he firmly believed henceforward that angels had miraculously helped him past the danger spot. This scene was automatically reproduced for a long time henceforward, for every time the child had to pass the critical spot, he did so in a state of complete unconsciousness. When he had passed it, he would thank God for having heard his prayer. Now, after more than three decades, this experience is for him the strongest proof 170 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS of God's existence, the proof of a miraculous answer to prayer, which ran counter to natural laws.1 The lad began to suffer at an early age from nervous symptoms. But he was even more troubled, now, by the sense of mental inferiority. Since he was at a drawback owing to his failure to learn at school, he regarded himself as stupid, and gradually came to believe that his brain must have been damaged by the frequent cuffings he had received. This sense of inferiority increased to become a feeling of weariness of life. The worst of all were the New Year days, on which he had to wish his mother a happy New Year, for he could never do it heartily, and was therefore always scolded for his lukewarmness. Religion was a consolation, for it promised that God would help even the tepid. He always thought of God's help as something magical, as something which would save him the trouble of exerting himself. Things began to improve when he was sent to work in a large business house. For now the mother, who had mean- while accumulated a comfortable competence, retired from business, and the son's achievements as a clerk earned the highest commendations from his superiors. He rapidly worked his way up to a good position. His mother still wished to treat him as a child, and even to box his ears, until one day he held her hands fast, and forbade her once and for all to lift a finger against him. She did her utmost to prevent his marrying, but he married in the end, when he seemed on the verge of becoming a confirmed bachelor. But notwith- standing the outward independence he had fought so hard to secure, there remained a fixation, which was only too plain. His wife was the refined and intelligent woman whose acquaintance we have already made on p. 128, and we know that she was herself affected with a father fixation. He began to torment her with nagging and railing, so that she became more and more estranged from him. There was a new and disagreeable demonstration of the old truth that anyone who attains to power is apt to take the opportunity of inflicting on others the woes he has himself had to suffer. He now assumed the position of the chiding mother, treating his wife much as he had himself been treated at home. The wife, as we know, became affected with a neurotic illness, 1 Pfister, Vermeintliche Nullen und angebliche Musterkinde, p. 32. DISLIKE IN THE UNCONSCIOUS 171 and to the husband the obsessional acts of the wife (who, despite intense efforts, became less and less able to perform her domestic duties) afforded an additional reason for continual scoldings. How strong was his inclination to nag, is illustrated by the following dream : "I arrive very late at business. To my delight and astonishment, the chief does not scold me. Having made my way to my own department, I am extremely angry to find that one of my subordinates has sold the whole stock of leather goods, which ought to have been repriced, at the old prices. Although this mistake is due to my having come late, I give him a sound scolding." If we were to interpret this dream merely as a description of his mental proclivities, the interpretation would run as follows : "I am glad that I am not scolded for my own errors ; but I scold my subordinates even though there is no good reason for doing so." But to-day we may regard it as proved (for the confirmation of the theory is continually renewed by the analysis of thousands of dreams) that with few exceptions 1 a dream represents a wish-fulfilment. We are seldom concerned with definitely conscious wishes whose realisation has been impossible. Dreams usually represent unconscious wishes, and wishes that have been so ugly or disagreeable that they are repressed as soon as they occur to us, or may never even be allowed to make their way into the conscious. Even in dreams, they could only appear in a greatly distorted form. A familiar instance of this is Joseph's dream of the sheaves, or of the sun, the moon, and the stars. He would not have had the effrontery to wish consciously that the brethren and even his parents should bow themselves before him, but his dreams present these wishes so carefully masked that he does not hesitate to relate them. His relatives, however, are better dream interpreters than Joseph is himself, for in fact where one's own mental experiences are concerned one readily fails to see the truth. But the wishes of the dreamer whose case we are now considering are not so hateful as to need a domino. They simply are a desire not to be scolded when he deserves it, and a desire to scold others who do not deserve it. A passion for finding fault runs through the analysand's whole life, and 1 Cf. Freud, Jenseits des Lustprinzips, p. 20. 172 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS this is the reflection of his relationship to his mother. He copies her behaviour precisely because it was so hateful to him. He becomes a fault-finder and a nagger, although there is nothing he detests so much as being found fault with and nagged at. Though in the conscious he is devotedly attached to his wife, he assigns to her the role which he himself had to play in childhood and youth. He does this, although consciously he is aware that she is an extremely refined and sensitive woman, far more cultured than he is himself; although he wishes her all good things, and has sacrificed much for her sake ; and although he knows that she must suffer intensely from this behaviour. Consequently, the wife welcomed the threat of divorce, which was more and more seriously held over her head. This trend of his prejudices him in his business life as well. His pettiness and his incredible love of fault-finding drive away the best of his subordinates. In the actual details of his daily life, the mother seems to live on in the son like an evil spirit. Like her, he is continually prowling about the shop, although as the head of a depart- ment, he ought to be at work in his office. During the ordinary working hours he is unable to attend to his correspondence properly. He sits brooding hour after hour, and fritters away his time just as he used to in school-when school work was regarded by his mother as a minor matter. As a compensa- tion, he works furiously during the night hours, just as in childhood, when he had to do correspondence and accounts for his mother. He is unable to read good literature, for his mother regarded reading as a waste of time. He is unable to draft a price-list which is urgently needed in his department, for he remembers how he trembled once watching his sister doing for his mother a piece of work which resembled the preparation of this price-list. Thus he still lives under the eyes of his mother, and positively mimics her. His very piety resembles hers in its characteristics, although he has got the better of his super- stition, thanks to the influence of inspiring teachers of religion. The words : " Honour thy father and thy mother " still make a terrific impression upon him. Moreover, the idea still persists with him that God compensates our defects ; and that if we are weak creatures, God is strong, and will guide DISLIKE IN THE UNCONSCIOUS ' 173 us to the best goal without any effort on our part. Here we have a fatalism, which entails the dangers of every belief of the kind. In actual fact, the analysand was greatly inclined, in positions demanding energetic action on his part, to take shelter behind his religion, and to put the burden on God. He would always have been glad to be carried about by the angels instead of exerting his own limbs. It was possible to explain the need for night work at home, and the fear of God, as forms of anxiety instilled in him by the mother. The love of fault-finding was a sort of revenge for the maltreatment he had himself experienced. But the way in which he imitated his mother justifies us in concluding that she had made an immense impression on him, and that in the unconscious he loved her. In the foregoing examples we have demonstrated the existence of this unconscious inclination behind the mask of conscious hostility. We often see how, from a long repressed hostility towards the parent, an ardent love may issue, which, from the recesses of the unconscious will now and again make its influence felt. CHAPTER EIGHT THE ASSOCIATION OF LOVE AND HATRED IN THE CONSCIOUS In the previous cases, love or hatred was dominant during a long phase of development. Precise study has, however, disclosed that absolute fondness is just as rare as pure anti- pathy. From the interplay of the two opposite tendencies, the most remarkable phenomena arise. Common though they are, they have hitherto been sedulously ignored simply because people have not known what to make of them. i. The Oedipus Complex and the Electra Complex. We often find that there is an overplus of love given to one parent while simultaneously the other parent is detested. When Freud began his researches into the depths below the surface of consciousness, he became aware of phenomena which he would never have perceived when studying the superficies alone. Those well acquainted with human nature, were, indeed, aware that boys are generally fonder of the mother than of the father, whereas girls as a rule prefer their father to their mother. It had, moreover, been noted in exceptional instances that the affection might develop into a true love passion, and that disinclination might grow to hatred. But until recently it had been impossible to realise that we here have to do with a relationship which permeates the whole of civilisation, which brings many lives to shipwreck, and which also stimulates many persons to remarkable achievements, among which may be numbered some of the works of genius. The study of the mental life below the threshold of consciousness, the study of the unconscious impulses of the mind, has put the matter beyond doubt. When the pheno- mena had been brought to light, a careful examination was 174 LOVE AND HATRED IN THE CONSCIOUS 175 made of the individual manifestations in which the unconscious was most freely operative, and it was found that this cleavage in the unconscious was a definite factor in the production of the man or woman of genius. Those who wish to study this matter to its depths should read Otto Rank's splendid book Das Inzest-Motiv in Sage und Dichtung. Rank, who is a patient and perspicacious investigator, comes to the conclusion, after the study of a vast amount of material, that an illicit fixation of the love sentiment upon one of the nearest blood relatives has characterised the most noted imaginative writers of world literature, and has even been the main motive force of their creative work. People will naturally be ready to turn up their noses at any such notion ; but everyone who studies Rank's arguments without prejudice, and who then examines the wellsprings of poesy for himself, will, I believe, for good or for evil, attain to the same certainty. The history of religion proves that religious life, likewise, is greatly influenced by Oedipus wishes. (Cf. Freud, Totem und Tabu.) But the reader must not suppose the analysts to imagine that the Oedipus complex furnishes the sole and adequate explanation of imaginative creation. He who is in search of truth must have the courage to dive to the bottom of things, even though the prospect seems as dreadful as it seemed to Schiller's diver. Above all, the investigator must completely free himself from prudery, and must be willing to contemplate the unattractive with the same moral earnestness as the beautiful and the attractive. Just as a young mother who loves her baby will attend to its natural needs without mincing about the matter, and just as a medical man will handle a patient's sputum without any sentiment of disgust, so the psychoanalyst and educator must give his full attention to the most disagreeable, the most repulsive details, as soon as he realises that this is of importance to the development of the individual. I come to the description of the forbidden relationship to the parents in the love sentiment of children. According to traditional morality there is nothing wrong in the occasional existence of excessive intimacy in the relation- ship towards the mother, in conjunction with a certain hostility towards the father. People jest about men with a passionate devotion to their mothers, men who at thirty or 176 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS forty years of age are still hanging to the mother's apron- string, who allow their mother to order them about as if they were children, who reject upon the most trifling pretexts any other affection, and continue to worship their mothers. Of late years, however, the study of innumerable instances of so-called nervous disease, the examination of persons suffering from weariness of life, hysteria, paroxysms of anxiety, infirmity of will, obsessional neuroses-in a word, mental cripples of the most manifold kinds-has enabled us to detect, behind the apparently harmless and reputedly charming relationship towards the mother, a relationship which is far from praiseworthy. We have discovered that, in secret, boys and men cherish sexual desires for the mother; girls and women, similar desires for the father. In conjunction with this passion, the subject has a jealous hatred of the other parent, father or mother as the case may be, and this jealousy often culminates in a definite wish for the death of the detested parent. In the Greek myth, it will be remembered that Oedipus, in accordance with the decree of destiny, unwittingly married his mother and slew his father. What in this myth was due to the hidden workings of destiny, occurs in the life of many human beings as a reflection of the incestuous lust for the mother, and the equally repulsive jealous hatred of the father. Freud goes so far as to maintain that the central cause of every nervous disorder is to be found in this impulse, which, on account of its repulsiveness, is repressed into the unconscious. The cause lies in the so-called " family romance." I think it desirable, in the first instance, to secure the reader's assent to the two main principles which must guide us in this connexion. The first principle is that we must have the most irrefragable grounds before we accept so amazing a contention. Unless there is definite need, unless the highest interests of truth demand it, we must not put forward a doctrine which is likely to arouse disgust in the majority. The other principle runs as follows : We must not from fear of public opinion or from prudery be led to deny or to conceal obvious facts. He who wishes to lie or to conceal, has no right to enter the garden or the wilderness of the love sentiment in children. My own experience has always been that a pure and fearless love of truth, though LOVE AND HATRED IN THE CONSCIOUS 177 it may lead to painful revelations, cannot but bring a blessed illumination in its train. What is the experience which justifies us in believing that so many thousand persons have such an Oedipus fixation, and are driven by it with an irresistible power ? Here comes the first difficulty. Like Goethe's Faust, we must descend into the realm of the unconscious, for there lies the realm of the mothers-and of the fathers murdered through hate. We find our best road on this journey to Hades through the dream imagination. I do not propose here to give proof of the assertion, but am content to refer the reader to my book Die psychanalytische Methode, pp. 300 et seq. In the days of classical antiquity, a writer with a profound knowledge of human nature described the dream which betrays an incestuous inclination towards the mother In his King Oedipus, Sophocles exclaims (lines 981-2) : How oft it chances that in dreams a man Has wed his mother ! To-day this dream is just as common as it was in ancient Hellas. As a rule, however, it is so thoroughly masked that its nature can be recognised only through expert analysis. In illustration, I will describe an instance in which the Oedipus wish was displayed with exceptional crudity. The subject was a man over forty, who since early childhood had suffered from anxiety manifestations. At the age of from three to five years, the boy would often awaken in terror, screaming for his mother. A dread of ghosts played a great part. At the age of seven he believed that he saw the devil outside the window, looking at him with glowing eyes. In subsequent years he suffered much from nightmare; he also had alarming dreams of burglars, carrying revolvers. From the age of thirteen he began to suffer from migraine whenever the fbhn was blowing, and continued to be thus affected until the time of the analysis. A little later, he began to be troubled with morbid timidity. Though a talented lad, he found it very difficult to speak up in class, for he felt embarrassed when anyone looked at him. When he had grown to manhood, the anxiety became concentrated 178 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS upon signing his name, which was a torture when anyone was looking at him, but only when he was asked to do it unexpectedly. The following symptom showed that there was something wrong in his relationship to his mother. From the age of seven till ten, he could not go to bed unless his mother followed him with her eyes as he went to the door. He always begged his mother to give him a final look when he was at the door ; then he went quite contentedly to bed ; he laid great stress on his mother looking him directly in the eyes. Her refusal to do this was the greatest punishment she could inflict on him. An intelligent governess had noted that some kind of danger was threatening the child. In actual fact, the life happiness of this extremely gifted boy was seriously impaired by the stagnation of impulse which was already present at that date. He was unable to make a satisfactory choice of a profession ; and though he was of an affectionate disposition, he did not marry. Only thanks to his exceptional energy and his strong sense of duty was he able to attain a fair measure of success in life. This subject was an unconscious Oedipus. At first, indeed, as far as he could recall, his youthful desires had been directed towards little girls and towards servantmaids. When he was five or six years old he used to creep into the servantmaid's bed, and asked to be permitted to practise inspectionism, which was usually allowed. But the desire of inspectionism of the mother was considerably greater. He liked to crawl under his mother's chair in order to see what he could. Up till the age of ten his mother allowed him to get into bed with her, without any suspicion how strong were the sexual desires that animated him on these occasions. He was especially excited one night when his mother was taken ill; and the overhearing of his parents engaged in sexual inter- course was extremely stimulating to him. The analysand is a typical inspectionist (voyeur). His sexual impulse, and in connexion therewith, almost all his mental interest, is concentrated in visual experience. All the rest is to him no more than a necessary evil. Inasmuch as the desire for forbidden inspection is thus exaggerated, the unexpected observation of himself by others arouses great anxiety. In the conduct of practical life, such a person finds LOVE AND HATRED IN THE CONSCIOUS 179 it very difficult to get beyond the stage of contemplation. He will pass from contemplation to action only under the strong pressure of outward circumstances. In his studies, in intercourse with his fellows, in the whole regulation of his life, one who is thus inhibited behaves as if he were merely sitting in his place at the theatre, watching while others acted. Innumerable observations have shown that night-terrors are often, and indeed most often, the outcome of sexual excitement. The child suffering from night-terror is giving expression to the stagnation of impulse, and is simultaneously seeking gratification. When the mother sleeps in the same room, and gets up to soothe her child, the child enjoys her tender caresses, and has ready opportunities for gratifying the inspectionist longing. The dread of ghosts is not rooted in the foolish tales of servants. The material of fairy tales is utilised as something on which to hang pre-existent anxiety which was primarily objectless. Freud's epoch-making discovery has shown that dread of thunder-storms, stairs, mice, beetles, etc., may be simply a pretext for the manifesta- tion of anxiety. The devil, in this case, is certainly a sexual spectre.1 The glowing eyes are a projection of lustful glances towards the mother and towards girls. No one who has studied the symbolism of dreams can fail to recognise that in the instance we are now considering, the burglars carrying revolvers must have symbolised the father. Direct analysis showed that the attacks of migraine when the fohn was blowing were the outcome of the forbidden longing for inspection. The mother suffered from the same trouble, and on days when she was affected with her paroxysms of headache she used to go about in her dressing-gown. The son liked to hang about the mother to watch her on these occasions, and especially when she was sitting on the commode. It aroused a very strong impression in him to see her bare buttocks. Subsequently he repressed his inspectionist desire into the unconscious, but then the attacks of migraine by which he came to resemble his beloved mother took the place of this desire. As soon as the connexion had been disclosed to him, the painful attacks ceased.2 * Haberlin, Sexualgespenster, " Sexualprobleme," eighth year of issue. ' Regarding the taking-over of morbid symptoms from a beloved person, of. Die psychanalytische Methode, p. 149. 180 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS The dread of being looked at was connected with the forbidden inspectionist longing. He had often been caught when practising inspectionism upon girls of his own age, or upon the servants. A more important determinant here, probably, was the need for atonement. The practice of inspectionism had been sinful; this made him uneasy ; as a punishment, others looked at him. Because he had a desire to see forbidden things, it became disagreeable that anyone should look at him. In his early youth, when he thought it of so much moment that his mother should look at him affectionately when he was going to bed, it was because he wished to reassure himself that she did not suspect his sinful desire. His uneasy conscience demanded appeasement. It was certainly no chance relationship that the protective charm of the maternal glance was coveted especially when he was going to bed. His mother's affectionate glances were to render impotent the glowing eyes of the fiend. That is why the matter was so important to him. At school, and in his subsequent life, the uncongenial situation was utilised in such a way as to materialise the anxiety that arose out of the repression of the inspectionist longing. Thus the punishment was completed. When he was signing his name, he had in his mind the thought: "Now people are seeing what you really are! " Substantially, his anxiety represented dread that his inspectionism would be detected and punished. The fixation of sexual desire upon the mother persisted into the fifth decade of life. That is why the anxiety also persisted; that is why no girl had ever been able to awaken in him a love leading to an enduring companionship. We are not surprised that in his dreams this man suffering from anxiety neurosis often saw himself plainly and directly having intercourse with his mother, as if he had been her husband ; whereas the father appeared to die of apoplexy. The subject, being a thoroughly conscientious man, was greatly incensed with himself on account of these dreams, but was no more able to check them than he could control his other morbid symptoms. Moreover, as a retribution for the wish that his father would die, the son took over various symptoms from the father such, as an affection of the bladder, the practice of teeth (which were worn down by it), etc.; and LOVE AND HATRED IN THE CONSCIOUS 181 in actual life he was extremely tender and loving towards both his parents. It has been proved that the Oedipus wish has in the development of children a significance which it is hardly possible to overestimate. How many a son has there been who has brought sorrow and shame upon his parents by a disorderly life, who has been shown by close examination to be one who is wreaking his unconconscious jealousy upon the father, and is taking revenge on account of his ill-starred passion for his mother. How many a nervous patient is there whose life is passed in misery simply because he would fain at any cost win his mother for himself and do away with his father. When this program proves impossible to fulfil, he takes refuge in a neurosis, partly to punish his parents, and partly that he may by his illness give symbolical expression to that which he will never be able to realise in the world of reality. In such morbid symptoms, the person thus affected is an actor wearing his father's beard or wig, or regulating his life in such a way as will most displease his parents- hazarding at the same time his own wellbeing. As Freud has wittily remarked, these poor wretches resemble the little boy who sulkily said : "It will serve father quite right if I fall ill and die ! '' One variety of persons affected with the Oedipus complex is constituted by those who try to conceal their hatred for the father by especial dutifulness and veneration. They want to show themselves to be as good as the father, to excel him if possible, although the task is quite beyond their powers. Instead of rightly developing their own talents, they wish to copy all that impresses them most in their father's behaviour. This leads them to shipwreck upon rocks that anyone in his right senses would have seen ; the morbid wish dominant in the unconscious brings them to an inglorious fate after mad aberrations, foolish undertakings, vain hopes, and bitter self-deception. In girls, for the most part, we find the opposite relationship -love for the father in conjunction with jealous hostility towards the mother. This is the direction of the love senti- ment whose most terrible embodiment in literature is familiar to us in the story of Electra who killed her mother because 182 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS she loved her father. Of course such a passion is harmless if it does not go too far. Where the development is normal, a girl's love for the father may be free from any dangerous accompaniments, just as her attitude towards her mother can be full of the spirit of cordial affection. But in unfavourable circumstances, with girls just as with boys, such a passion may involve the whole life in tragedy. We have seen the disastrous results of such an unconscious fixation in the cases recorded on pp. 121-138. If such a love encounters a harsh disposition in the father, as in the case of the girl who was harassed by the idea of her father's imminent death (p. 139), the love, like any unhappy love, may be transformed into hatred. 2. Alternations of Love and Hate. We do not invariably find that one of the parents is permanently in the sunshine whilst the other is banished into the shade. Some children alternate the disposal of their favour and disfavour. Generally, in such cases, there is a seesaw, so that the parent who has been preferred is now detested, and the one who has been disliked comes into high favour. This was especially noticeable in the case of a young man under my observation, whose life was manifestly dominated by Oedipus ideas. To understand his mental development, we must also take into account his relationship to his brothers and sisters and to his friends-but the reader will have already come to recognise that the love sentiment in children cannot be considered as concentrated upon any one individual. In this case, the analysand had in his earliest years been devoted to his father, who treated him kindly, and liked to take the boy with him on journeys. Soon, however, a change of feeling took place. The father, who was extremely hot-tempered, maltreated the mother, and used to chastise his children for trifling causes. While the analysis was in progress, the son had an impressive dream in which he saw himself as a three-year-old child, standing beside his mother, and threatening his father with a raised axe. His mother had always been an object of tender affection. She protected the child to the best of her ability. She often took him into LOVE AND HATRED IN THE CONSCIOUS 183 bed with her, apparently with the design of avoiding her husband's demands. It is, however, certain that the little boy had had occasion to watch his parents in the sexual act, and to see how his unhappy mother would often resist for a long time the somewhat brutal advances of the husband. These experiences aroused in the child a feeling of hatred towards the father. Subsequently, when his bed was in an adjoining room, the boy surmised that such scenes were frequent, and he believed them to represent a cruel and criminal illtreatment of his mother. His anger towards his father could not manifest itself directly, for the father's harshness instilled fear. The animosity, therefore, displayed itself one day against his teacher. The latter had blamed the boy-then about eleven years old-several times for playing tricks with his pen ; and since this reproof was unavailing, he at length cuffed the lad. In a rage, the boy threw himself on the teacher, wrestled with him, and scratched him till the blood came. It was difficult to control the infuriated youngster and to put him outside the door. There- after he was afraid to go home until forced to do so by hunger. His father gave him a sound whipping, and made him ask the teacher's pardon. Happily, the teacher, being a man of good disposition, had realised the boy's despair. He accepted the apology, and subsequently won the boy's affections. But the hatred for the father became all the greater. Among his schoolfellows, our analysand, who was affected with an inferiority complex and therefore strove to assert his superiority, was the ringleader and undisputed chief, until a sudden transformation took place. Probably an inspectionist incident was the cause of this change. As a trio, he, his sister, and one of his schoolmates, practised inspection. The result was that he regarded himself as inferior in the bodily respect, and envied his friend, whose organs were more powerfully developed. The locality at which this momentous occurrence took place often recurs in his manhood's dreams. His puberal development was strongly influenced by this physico-sexual inferiority complex. He who had been the leader, became timid and cowardly. When he was about twelve or thirteen, he chopped off one of his own finger joints ; this must be regarded as an atonement for an offence. At about the same time he began to suffer night after night 184 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS from terrible anxiety. He was then sleeping in a room with very thin walls. For years he was terribly afraid that there might be a burglar behind the wall. Anyone familiar with such cases will at once realise that there was a return of the anxiety of childhood, the anxiety which had been aroused by the enforcement of sexual intercourse upon the mother- but the persons to whom the anxiety really related had been repressed from consciousness.1 Another morbid symptom was a compulsion which made him continually ask himself, " What do the people in Tierra del Fuego do ? " or, " What is this or that friend at a distance now doing ? " Those acquainted with such obsessional manifestations will know, of course, that here, as usually in dreams, fire (fuego) signifies love-that the dreamer is questioning the mystery of love.3 When the interest concerned friends, the dreamer was probably thinking of the friend who had taught him to masturbate, and who played the third part in the scene with the sister. Another anxiety, which lasted for years, came on whenever he was on a funicular railway, or in a lift, or in a railway train crossing a bridge. He was afraid of being precipitated into the abyss. Or, when he was opening a door, he would suddenly be seized with the thought : " Fancy if I had now lost my hand ! " Another obsessive idea was : " Just think if I were to lose one of my eyes now ! " This inspectionist, like one of those previously described (p. 178), has his thoughts controlled by the sexual shocks experienced in childhood. In this instance, the amatory life had undergone a fixation upon mere inspection. Since the puberal development, not only erotic actions, but erotic thoughts likewise, were restricted to inspectionism. There was no transition to vigorous action. The thought remained unproductive; it was perspicuous and unenigmatic, but led nowhere. It was obvious from the subtle and involved character of his ordinary thought, that he had a love of thinking for its own sake. But nothing practical came of these wanderings in a logical desert. When one of his writings proved a failure, the source of joyful literary creation dried up. 1 Cf. Die psychanalytische Methode, p. 359. » Cf. Pfister, Die schwer erziehbarer Kinder, p. 69, the section concerning Die psychologic der Brandstiftung. LOVE AND HATRED IN THE CONSCIOUS 185 For several decades the hostility to the father continued in its full intensity, and as soon as possible a complete separation was effected. But the son remained full of chivalrous affection for his good mother. When, however, the father became dangerously ill, the son visited him, and the sight of the afflicted man aroused a sense of tenderness. After the father's death, this tenderness grew to passionate love. Sending his brothers and sisters out of the death chamber, he wept bitterly, and affectionately stroked the dead man's forehead. Since then he has suffered from a terrible conflict. His reason told him that his father had been a rough and cruel man, one who for years had been extremly unjust to those dependent on him. Nevertheless, the analysand could not shake off a feeling that he had himself been unjust to the deceased. The subject's temper grew strangely worse, and to his great regret his love for his mother was replaced by indifference. Manifestly, he was, in imagination, assimilating himself to his father. Why was this ? Was he simply slipping back into early childhood ? No, for in that case the father's death would have resulted in marked inhibition of the vital energies, of which, however, there was no sign. The cause must have been a desire for atonement. He had recognised his earlier wishes for the father's death as sinful. The death having disclosed the nature of these wishes, he wanted to make up for them. The criminal wish of his childhood's days, which found expression in the subsequent dream of himself threatening the father with an axe, had been the outcome, not only of chivalrous zeal on behalf of the violated mother, but of a base envy of his father's masculine potency. This was why there was an outburst of affection by the side of the corpse, and why he came to assimilate himself to the dead man. We may be certain that during the long period of estrangement, when the conscious displayed nothing but hatred towards the father, in the unconscious a repressed love was always present. The subject's severe and persistent sufferings were connected with the abnormality of his love sentiment in childhood. A healthy and happy life can, in such cases, only be ensured by a careful psychoanalytical catharsis, and by a deliverance of these spiritual powers. 186 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS 3. Conflicting Influences of Love and Hate. (The Hamlet Attachment.) When love and aversion are approximately balanced, apparent indifference often results. Outwardly a child may be affectionate, obedient, respectful; its parents have no doubt of its love. But really there is no love. From a sense of duty, or from interested motives, the child may behave like other children, while in reality suffering acutely owing to its aloofness from the father and the mother. Such a child will usually display a certain irritability, and is sometimes prone to contradict. Here is a case of the kind. The subject is a young man of twenty-four, who is distressed and ailing. In childhood he had been delicate, and had been therefore coddled. His mother, a woman of nervous temperament, had cherished narrow views on religion and morality, and had been intolerant in their display. The father, a man of considerable intellectual powers, had also been of pious inclinations, but without wishing to dominate the religious life of his children. The little boy was surrounded with too many prohibitions. Exaggerated fears for his safety led his parents to restrict any inclinations he might show to exert himself or to be venturesome, so that a sense of physical inferiority and of being hampered lay like lead upon his youthful soul. His mental condition, of which, despite their ability, the parents had no inkling, was manifested by two incidents. When he was five or six years old, the little boy, feeling unusually sorry for himself, lay down on the ground with arms outstretched. When asked what he was doing, he answered that he was Christ on the cross. The unhappiness of his mood was shown, not only by the constraint of his manner, but also by the temporary onset of nocturnal incontinence. His comparison of himself to Christ indicates that he was suffering much, and was greatly in need of conso- lation. Even more important is a dream which first manifested itself when he was six years old. It recurred three or four times, and continued to surge up in his memory for a long time afterwards. Here are the dream and the associations: LOVE AND HATRED IN THE CONSCIOUS 187 " I saw before me a railing in a definite part of our garden near a bush." [The railing.] It forms a right-angle where I am shut in. In reality there is no such railing there, painted black, only a much lower railing. [The place in the garden.] My mother used to sit there, in front of the shrubbery in my dream. [The mother in that place.] In that place I asked my mother whether all my school- fellows were well off, for so some one had shortly before told me. My mother said I was mistaken, and that some of my schoolfellows were quite poor. [Consider this place again, and give the associations.] Somewhere about here the son of our coachman showed my mother, or my father and my mother, some sketches he had made, which were much praised.-Close by here, when in my bath, I got a sunstroke. I can still picture to myself how I was taken out of the bath. But the setting also reminds him of another experience. One day, in childhood, he got locked up in a closet. For a long time he was a prisoner, and was much frightened. Then it was found possible to slip a plank from a neighbouring roof to the window, and the boy made good his escape, though not without a certain risk. But what recurs in the dream and in the associations to it is not this predicament, but the experiences with the mother. The black railing, taller than the real railing, which the little dreamer saw, symbolises his painful feeling of being hampered ; and the place in the garden is brought into relation with the mother who was the cause of this restraint. The same place also recalls the privileged economic position of which the child was first made aware there. He realised there how he was much better off than the coachman's son, who had grown up in the same garden, and had displayed such marked ability. He thought also what help his mother had given him when he was affected with sunstroke. Thus the meaning of the dream may be interpreted somewhat as follows : "I am indeed in the position of a captive ; but I am rich, can grow up to become an able man, 188 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS and when I am dangerously ill I enjoy the most attentive care." But these consoling thoughts did not suffice to remove his sense of constraint. The pent-up yearning for love and freedom led to anxiety. On the wall of a neighbouring house there was an innocent bas-relief. In these traceries, the child fancies he saw the figure of a witch, and this caused him an inexplicable anxiety. As always, however, sweet was mingled with the bitter. The delight in tormenting himself became plainer and plainer, as we can often see in children who have much to suffer. The sufferer's nature adapts itself so well to the suffering, that the latter becomes a need and a source of pleasure. The boy delighted to picture himself being afflicted in all sorts of ways. Moreover, he says he once nipped himself with a pair of pincers. His thoughts continually dwelt on the idea of being tied up ; and when he was fourteen, he actually did tie himself up. This act was immediately followed by masturbation.1 In school he was terrified when he was called upon by the teacher to take his turn, and for an hour afterwards would suffer from writer's cramp. The teacher therefore spoke of him as " nervous," which was true enough, but had a bad suggestive influence on him. Unfortunately this teacher did not thoroughly investigate the pupil's condition, and therefore failed to avert the threatening disaster. His self-confidence became impaired. At the Gymnasium, he suffered for years from feelings of lassitude. His parents, and the doctors who were consulted, considered that this condition was due to bodily weakness, when in reality it was unquestionably the outcome of spiritual need, and could have been cured by psychoanalysis.3 The subject was now attacked by hypochondria. On the organic side, his anxiety manifested itself in palpitation. For the parents this was 1 Such an act as a prelude to masturbation may surprise the reader, but it is by no means rare. I know a young man who was likewise brought up very strictly. When, shortly before his confirmation, he was looking at a picture of a slave-ship, he was filled with a sense of keen pity for the chained victims. A moment later, for the first time in his life, and without any seduction having taken place, he practised masturbation. It took him many years thereafter to break himself of this bad habit. Another lad had an enthusiasm for ascetic practises which were to strengthen his will. Quite suddenly these exercises were transformed into the immoderate practice of masturbation. Such was the outcome of his reputed asceticism. » Cf. Die psychanalytische Methode, pp. 152 et seq. LOVE AND HATRED IN THE CONSCIOUS 189 fresh evidence of bodily delicacy, and they fussed over him to such an extent that he was driven almost to despair. He passionately protested against these well-meant attempts to strangle his activities. Gradually, however, there gained ground in his mind the idea that he was utterly incompetent-especially when prayer had failed to help him in his struggle against masturbation, with a consequent disturbance of his religious faith. After a fierce struggle to retain his belief, he broke away from the narrow religiosity of his parents, but not wishing to displease them he continued to attend church regularly. Concurrently, his feeling towards his father, which had never been more than lukewarm (though the lad recognised the father's goodness and nobility of mind), grew still cooler. No efforts on his part could make him any fonder of the father. In the conscious, love for the mother persisted ; but in dreams he often wished for her death, as well as for that of his father. Thus the emotional condition of this well-intentioned lad became most pitiable. On this occasion, likewise, we have to pass beyond the domain of childhood into that of early manhood. We have learned that the settlement of the relationship with the parents led to a new religious orientation. Matters did not end with the repudiation of the inculcated Salvationist piety. This had been orthodox in character, issuing from an overwhelming sense of sin, and celebrating its triumphs in faith in the miracle of the virgin birth, that of bodily resurrection, and that of the ascension. The loss of this faith was followed by a sense of weariness of life and by thoughts of suicide. The struggle to grasp the meaning of existence grew ever fiercer. At the age of twenty-two, the young man continued to cling to the ethical content of Christianity. It was impossible for him to talk matters out with his father, for the latter had declared that it would be a terrible grief to him and would bring him to an early grave were his son to fall away from the family faith. After reading the works of some of the philosophical idealists, whereby he regained an understanding for the true spirit of religion, our analysand adopted a remarkable position. Philosophical thought left him in the lurch. But one night, suddenly, his mind was opened to an intuitive experience. He believed himself to 190 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS have realised that everything which he had hitherto regarded as having belonged to the outer world was fundamentally nothing but his own personal experience, so that nothing existed outside himself.1 This was an almost hallucinatory realisation of the philosophical doctrine known as solipsism. (The term is derived from the two Latin words solus and ipse, meaning " self alone " ; this denotes the conception that I alone possess reality.) Death no longer seemed to him anything to be feared, seeing that life and the whole of reality had lost its meaning. This thought-trend, however, did not last. He found it impossible to believe in the long run that the world existed only within himself. After a few weeks, while listening to a church concert, he reached a solution of the conflict. He realised inwardly that there is something greater than the ego, something absolute, which simultaneously transcends and comprises the ego and the whole of reality. Making a detour by way of the experience of God, he returned to reality. Now the personality of Jesus seemed to him far more potent and far freer than ecclesiastical dogmas and symbols suggest. He saw in Christ the strong man who desires to make us also truly strong. This enabled him to overcome the pessimism which had troubled him so greatly in the preceding years. And yet he had not secured a genuine deliverance. It became ever harder for him to enter into a satisfactory relation- ship with his fellows. Although he was extremely successful in his profession, this gave him no satisfaction, and his only reason for not adopting some new occupation was that nothing appealed to him any better. His sense of inferiority increased. An indication of this was that when he was writing, he often forgot to write the word " I." Depression and anxiety gained on him ; his energies were increasingly paralysed. He was perpetually tormented with a sense of being incompetent for the tasks of life. His memory frequently failed him. In a state of persistent nervous irritation and anxiety, he tended 1 In his admirable novel The Dream of a ridiculous Man, Dostoevski describes a man suffering from extreme self-contempt and affected with suicidal impulses. Gradually he comes to see and feel that nothing exists outside himself. Cruelty displayed towards a girl begging for help induces a dream in which he recognises love as truth, and by which he is given back to life. (The story will be found in vol. xi of Constance Garnett's translations.) LOVE AND HATRED IN THE CONSCIOUS 191 more and more " to creep into himself," and lost all activity. Insomnia gave him increasing trouble. When he awoke from sleep, it was to the distressing sense that he was sinking, was being spiritually overwhelmed, was hanging in the void. He wrote once : " I often feel as if the rays that pass off from me must curve back towards the centre, towards my own ego. In my states of depression I suffer terribly; I believe that I cannot endure these torments any longer. I have the feeling that I simply cannot get out of myself, despite my most earnest endeavours. I dread the oncoming of mental hebetude, which will certainly overcome me unless I am able to get my thoughts out of the present vicious circle. 1 must either live, or not. The intermediate state which was forced upon me by my parents is intolerable as a permanency." Happily he learned something of psychoanalysis, and turned to me for help. In the first letter he wrote : " When I lacerate myself in this depression, when I no longer see any aim or outlet, and when I feel that I am being over- whelmed in this restricted environment, I am likely to do something utterly foolish, and now that I am somewhat freer I would gladly prevent this. In the state of depression I know that my condition is extraordinarily dangerous to me." By psychoanalytical treatment, this remarkably talented youth, hungering for light, was cured in about six months. His disinclination for work and his vacillation were replaced by concentrated endeavour ; and his love for his parents was maintained, despite his recognition of the defects of his education. In passing, I may mention that the coldness towards the parents was the obverse of the most intense spiritual suffering. A number of developmental histories have now been sketched. While doing this, I was fully aware of a certain difficulty. We cannot be content with the simple description of facts, but have to refer to the relationships between these facts. Now, have the relationships been rightly grasped ? Have we not assumed the existence of causal relationships when there was really no more than a casual conjunction ? Have we failed to recognise more deep-seated ties ? The reader must remember that such a description as the present cannot possibly disclose all the psychological laws that are 192 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS involved, and also that in the strict sense of the term there is no such thing as an integral description of facts. A full description of facts would involve giving the totality of all the characteristics, the accessory and insignificant, just as much as the decisive and important. Every description implies a selection. What is important is not learned from a few experiences, but from a very large number. When in connexion with certain facts, certain other phenomena are invariably disclosed, we are able to infer a causal relationship ; we infer this relationship when we find that particular pheno- mena have particular invariable antecedents. We must also be careful to avoid assuming, in explanation of these constant successions, laws which other observations have shown to be inoperative. Now, we have very numerous observations concerning the mode of repression into the unconscious, and also concerning the effects of forcing an impulse into abnormal channels, concerning the fixation of an impulse with the aid of the unconscious, concerning the reaction of the mental organism to particular stimuli under the influence of repression, and so on. Elsewhere I have shown how, out of such experiences, hypotheses and theories, concepts and laws, can be deduced.1 In the foregoing, I have never assumed causal relationships unless the assumption was justified a hundredfold by other observations and experiments. The attentive reader will certainly have realised that even in these outline sketches that have been presented to him, constant types of phenomena are plainly manifested. Of course, in the case of each one of the instances of evolution or aberration, numerous additional arguments could have been adduced, such as dreams, involuntary or voluntary actions, etc. But in a monograph upon so extensive a subject, it is impossible to give much detail. The zealous student can easily, by research of his own, secure the necessary material. 1 Zum Kampf um die Psychoanalyse, pp. no et seq. II. The Love of the Child for other Persons THAN THE PARENTS CHAPTER NINE LOVE FOR BROTHERS AND SISTERS In connexion with the child's craving for love, the brothers and sisters are usually of less importance than the parents If, in a child's life, we compare the father and the mother to the sun and the moon, the brothers and the sisters may be compared to the planets. Only when strong restrictions are imposed upon the relationships to the parents, do the brothers and sisters come to occupy a notable place-and even then their importance is apt to be apparent merely. At a later stage, in the systematic discussion of the fateful influence of love of childhood, we shall consider this matter. The aim of the present preliminary remark is merely to explain why less space is given to the forms and development of the child's love for brothers and sisters than to those of the child's love for its parents. The educationist who practises psycho- analysis is not as a rule able to study the subject's attitude towards brothers and sisters with the same care as the attitude towards the parents. Still, I have plenty of material of this kind, and shall record a few of the most notable phenomena. i. Love Predominant. (a) Love both in the Conscious and in the Unconscious. There is a widespread belief that love for brothers and sisters can never attain to high intensity. The Old Testament has charming things to say of the delights of brotherly love. No one will contradict this assertion; no one will endeavour to decry the beauties of a noble love between brothers and sisters. 193 194 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS But it is not my business here to talk of matters that have long been known. Without dissenting from the praise of brotherly and sisterly affection, I have to adduce facts that are often ignored, facts that may serve to warn us against the aberrations of this form of love. A characteristic example has already been described, in connexion with an account of unrestricted love for the parents. On p. 121, we made the acquaintance of a girl who was unequal to the demands of life because she had a fixation on her family, so that her attitude towards the outer world was full of constraint, was characterised by anxiety and by petty childish illusions. No other boy could be compared with her brother ; no other boy could claim her interest. This girl was unduly retiring. Her excessively sober dress gave expression to her wish not to please. The dream in which she swam with her brother in the village " Fain " ( = faun) betrays an incest wish. Here is a kindred case : A girl of sixteen suffers from violent headache, and her doctor therefore orders that she shall be kept away from school. Since there is no improvement, she comes to consult me, and tells me that during sleepless nights she is tormented by the irresistible dread that she is going mad. The state- ment is introduced with the tearful remark : " I suffer because there is no love among human beings ! " (This means : " I suffer because I cannot love properly ! ") It is easy to ascertain that there is a fixation on the brother. All other young fellows are blockheads and foojs. The subject's dreams disclose a love for her brother which certainly did not exist only in the realm of symbolism. Every thought of love and marriage aroused repulsion. On his side, her brother demanded that the sister should before strangers speak to him as " you " instead of " thou " ; and he was fiercely jealous of her. He suffered from suicidal impulses. In this girl's case it was easy to relieve the fixation, the obsessive ideas, and the compulsions. The brother was not analysed. The unduly close tie between brother and sister had been brought about (as in Ernst Zahn's fine novel Die Geschwister) by the fact that during the first years of life LOVE FOR BROTHERS AND SISTERS 195 the children had been very closely associated and had shared serious dangers.1 Otto Rank, in the book previously mentioned upon the incest motive in poesy and saga, shows how the restriction of normal development owing to a fixation upon a brother or a sister discloses itself in literature. In a youth of sixteen, a sufferer from obsessional neurosis, the affection for the sister had a manifestly sexual tinge. For the last ten years there had been indications of a morbid fixation. When in his bath he always held his hands out of the water, and neither coaxing nor severity could induce him to behave otherwise. The analysis showed that he had an unconscious dread of snakes in the water ; the idea that he would touch them filled him with horror. This dated from a bath he had shared with his father, when he had seen his father's penis ; it was also connected with his having been strictly forbidden to play with his own penis. Very remark- able was a compulsive action which the boy was not himself able to describe. For years past, if either of his two sisters, but especially the younger, was in the room with him, he had had an irresistible desire to toss plates, glasses, and similar utensils into the air.3 His behaviour towards his sister was rough and clownish, and often definitely improper ; but if the girl refused him a goodnight kiss he would walk up and down his room weeping for a long time. This lad was told to close his eyes (to enable him to concentrate better), and to think about the morbid movement of his hands. This disclosed the following associations : The movement always reminds me of the jumping of spring-tails, crayfish, and fleas. [Spring-tails.] Primitive little insects which are particularly fond of jumping. I found these once in X. [X.] I found there for the first time Impatiens Noli-me-tangere-yellow balsam. (The mother subsequently confirmed the statement that the fruit of these plants had * The brother's subsequent history was unfavourable. He proved unequal to the demands of life. His disposition became embittered. The sister was successful in meeting severe trials, and became an excellent and helpful woman. She overcame a strong tendency towards an ascetic and over- enthusiastic form of Christianity. To-day her nature, once so unhappy, is characterised by admirable harmony. 1 Cf. Die psychanalytische Methode, pp. 68 et seq. 196 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS made a very strong impression upon the child, who was then six years old. He was told the meaning of the name " noli- me-tangere "-don't touch me. Shortly before, he had been cautioned against touching his penis.) They jumped just like little shrimps. [Crayfish.] At one time I was unwilling to eat fish; at that time I would not eat crayfish either. Before this I had eaten a fish, a flounder, whose membrum I particularly noticed. (About six years before he came to con- sult me, the boy had often used to dream of a dragon, which was a cross between a flounder and a flying dragon ; when- ever he had this dream, he suffered from an attack of anxiety.) [Fleas.] And cicadas, which jumped just like fleas. I believe that my habit must be connected with the crayfish, for these always used to excite me. [Did you notice a sexual organ in the crayfish, too ?] No, at least, yes, the back part of the body of the crayfish, when the shell had been taken off, was wormlike, like the penis of the flounder. (He showed me in his collection the various animals the likeness of which seemed to him important.) We see that the compulsive action (the throwing up of the glasses, plates, etc.) calls up spring-tails and yellow balsam. The boy himself suggests that this association may be sexually determined. It signifies: " Do not touch the snake (the snake of which we heard in connexion with the anxiety in the bath, the snake that symbolises the penis)." The action of jumping calls up the association of crayfish and fish. He had no longer been able to eat (" touch ") either crayfish or fish after he had seen in a flounder an organ which he supposed to be a penis. It is well known that fish often have this symbolical meaning.1 The hinder part of the body of the crayfish has a similar form. Now we understand why the patient only practises his pantomime in the presence of the sister whom he loves. He is sexually excited by her, and then mimics animals which for him symbolise sexuality. In so doing he does not disobey the command that he is not to touch the penis ; and yet, in a symbolical way, he is engaged in the forbidden action. We are familiar with the same sort of symbolism in religion (for instance, the sacrifice of an animal by way of atonement, instead of self-slaughter), in ordinary language, and fre- 1 Die psychanalytische Methode, p. 248. LOVE FOR BROTHERS AND SISTERS 197 quently elsewhere. From the evening that the interpretation was made, the compulsive action ceased to trouble him. There were other symptoms in this patient to show that the obsessional neurosis really served as a means for playing in secret a sexual part which he could not play openly. I will describe them concisely. There was a dislike, associated with slight anxiety, for opening drawers, especially if there were rolled table-napkins in them. He did not like to handle a rolled table-napkin. [Drawers.] I see the table-napkins, rolled up, lying in them. The napkin-ring I used to have, suddenly disappeared. On this ring there was a view of X (the place where touch-me-not had first been found). . . . The rolled table-napkins had almost the same shape as the fruit of touch-me-not. That is, no doubt, why open table- napkins make no impression on me, but only when they are rolled. Look here, here is a picture of touch-me-not. When the tops burst, they roll up like the napkins. The disinclina- tion to touch a rolled napkin (" noli me tangere ") persisted for several weeks, until I had made clear to him the meaning of the obsessional disinclination. In the interim, the attitude towards the sister had been rectified. The whole obsessional neurosis, of which only some of the features have been described, was easily allayed by the analysis. It will be interesting to learn how the younger sister's illness developed. I may premise that the mother, for an aesthetic motive, had for years allowed her children to play nude in the garden ; this aroused sexual desires, which were promptly repressed from an instinctive dread of incest. The girl, who is twelve and a half years old, suffers frequently from violent migraine and severe abdominal pains, which confine her to bed. She feels as if all her hair were being torn out. [Think of your hair being torn out.] (After long hesitation) : " One day my brother, when we were alone together, did something improper to me. When I resisted, he seized me forcibly by the hair." [The abdominal pains.] " I feel as if a dentist's drill were being turned inside me. My brother used to bite his finger-nails so that the edges were uneven."-From this hour the symptoms ceased. The girl had had no thought that there might be a sexual cause for the hysteria. 198 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS This patient, who is talented, and whose hysteria is unfortunately only the superstructure of epilepsy, exhibits a very remarkable series of symptoms. Some months before I made her acquaintance she was attacked once after dinner by hiccup. Notwithstanding the use of domestic remedies, the trouble persisted and grew worse, until after supper the little girl went to the bookcase and read a few sentences out of Scheffel's Ekkehard. When, henceforward, she suffered from attacks of hiccup, nothing could help her but this book. Of a sudden, however, even this remarkable medicament, which had hitherto been an invariable cure, ceased to operate, and it was then my assistance was demanded. It is perhaps somewhat venturesome of me to adduce this example, for it is a rather complicated one. But it affords such admirable instances of certain qualities of the unconscious and of the working of the psychoanalytical method, that I cannot refrain from recording it. I take the following account from my shorthand notes of the analysis. [The hiccup.] At home we call it " Schnackerl." I have a stupid name for it, " Goschnill " ; I accent the last syllable of the word. This word seems to me extremely descriptive : " cochenille " signifies the purple-fish. My brother has a specimen of it in his collection. I have a strange feeling as if the " Goschnill " could hop, but I think more about the word than about the thing. I do not know why I find it so descriptive. [Goschnill.] " Gosche " is a coarse expression for the mouth. " Schnill " must be connected with going " schnell " (quickly). To hiccup is to go quickly with the Gosche (mouth). The " hopping Goschnills " remind me of sand-hoppers in the dunes. I liked it very much one day when one of these creatures hopped on to me when I was dreaming there. My brother told me a lot of stories about them. During meal-times, or when he is alone with me, my brother continually makes hopping movements with his hands. He moves them quickly up towards the ceiling. It is well-known that many hysterical symptoms, objec- tively regarded, are simply imitative. Anyone who is aware of this will already be prone to suspect that the " Gosche- schnellen " of the sister is connected with that of the brother ; and certainly the purple-fish and the sandhoppers refer to him. The further study of the case confirms this idea. LOVE FOR BROTHERS AND SISTERS 199 Ekkehard is our pupil's favourite book. But the girl is not allowed to read it to the end, and is restricted to the first part. Her favourite character is Frau Hadwig. She is in love with a learned, awkward, intolerant monk, whom she cannot marry; and she loves a beautiful servantmaid, Praxedis. [Ekkehard.] My brother is also learned and awkward, and would like to live as a recluse in the Wild- kirchlein. [Praxedis.] She reminds me of my English governess, whom I am very fond of. I soon learned that shortly before the reading of Ekkehard ceased to be an invariable remedy for the hiccup, the girl had received news that this favourite teacher was about to leave. Surely we are entitled to infer that the analysand was freed from her automatism in this way. Without realising it, she had compared herself with the duchess, but when she found that the comparison ceased to apply, the novel left her in the lurch. About two weeks after the relief of the hiccup she began to suffer from a terrible itching of the scalp. She had a moderate bromide rash, but this did not suffice to explain the itching. I made careful enquiries of her, in such terms as to avoid any suggestion of the answers, and learned that she used to scratch herself till the blood came (" as if I wanted to scalp myself "), and would tear out her hair by handfuls. Painful as was the itching, it was none the less ecstatic. The strange thing was that when the sensation was most violent she could not help looking at her brother. She had noticed before that her brother (who had himself previously suffered from a nervous skin eruption) had a dirty scalp.1 Itching may signify a motor function, and is then synonymous with " schnellen " (Gosche-schellen), but it may also signify a sensory function. This symptom, likewise, promptly dis- appeared after the analysis. We shall often have occasion to note how when one neurotic manifestation is driven away, another will promptly take its place. Whilst our patient had previously imitated the brother's itching in a motor fashion (by the hiccup), she now did so sensorially. That is why she looked at him fixedly while scratching herself hysterically. We see plainly 1 Jung draws my attention to the fact that Goethe's sister became affected with eczema of the neck and chest when she had to wear a low-necked dress. 200 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS that below the threshold of consciousness there was going on an elaboration of the symptoms in the direction of the joyous and automatic realisation of a new symbol. After the relief just recorded, other compensatory symptoms appeared. For lack of space I must omit them here.1 Associated with these obvious morbid phenomena, there are always more or less important disturbances of the character, and to the educationist these are far more weighty than the pathological symptoms. As a rule the sister does not appreciate the brother as he actually is; but he is imaginatively dressed up in lineaments of the father, or sometimes of the mother also. The dislike felt by a sister for a brother often represents in truth a dislike for the father. For this reason, in dreams, the brother often has the features of the father, and the sister some of the characteristics of the mother. (b) Love in the Conscious and Dislike in the Unconscious. We sometimes encounter brothers and sisters who love one another earnestly in the conscious, but who in the unconscious entertain a strong mutual dislike. However, I have never come across cases in which the contradiction is so gross as in similar twofold relationships towards the parents. Perhaps the brother and the sister may be strongly attached to one another ; if they are parted, they crave for one another intensely. When they are reunited, they are filled with joy. Yet they will be continually quarrelling ; will thwart one another's most urgent wishes ; will depreciate one another's work; or will hamper one another's free activities by an excess of tenderness. When we analyse such relationships, we make a discovery similar to that which we make when we scrape the green or black paint off a garden railing-a crude red manifests itself. Thus behind the fraternal or sisterly affection, which openly or secretly wields the lash, we invariably detect an unconscious dislike, in part due to envy, in part to childish jealousy, in part to a checked lust for power, in part to a malicious delight, in part to frustrated love. It is akin to sadism. Such young people need one another and love one another, simply in order that they may gratify on one another the unconscious evil desires. ' Cf. Die psychanalytische Methode, pp. 36 et seq. LOVE FOR BROTHERS AND SISTERS 201 The more hateful these evil desires, the more strongly censurable they are, the more parade does the conscious make of affection. When such a state of affairs exists, we usually find that there are dreams of the death of the brother or the sister. A striking example is that of a man of thirty-seven, whose case affords an important contribution to our knowledge of the sexual life of the child. In the conscious he is devoted to his brother, five years younger than himself, and is willing to make every sacrifice for him. When the younger brother was born, the elder brother was jealous. At the age of ten, the elder brother nearly killed the younger by shooting him with an arrow in the temple. But the elder was an affec- tionate and faithful companion to the younger. In his fantasies, however, there is little disguise about the cruelty with which he puts his brother out of the way. He imagines that some one is cutting a child out of the mother's womb, not skilfully as an accoucheur would do it, but brutally and with cruel intent; this is obviously the brother who is to be put to death. Or he will have him killed in the most brutal manner in the mother's womb. Sadistic hatred for the mother and the brother are connected I Both are usually referable to a tender feeling towards the mother-a craving that is unsatisfied because it is excessive. Cruelty towards the brother is also aimed at the father. The murderous thoughts, which were quite outside the realm of the conscious, took their revenge in grave anxiety symptoms, to which I shall return in another connexion. 2. Dislike predominant. (a) Dislike both in the Conscious and in the Unconscious. The following example of a schoolboy whose thought- activities were gravely hampered is the case of a gifted foreigner, now twenty-eight years of age. He was sent late to school, at the age of eight , during the first two years of his school life he made almost no progress, despite punish- ment. Subsequently, under another teacher, his progress was excellent, so that he was able to jump a class in the remove.1 The first teacher must have been an extremely 1 Cf. Pfister, Vermeintliche Nullen und angebliche Musterkinder, for fuller details concerning this case. 202 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS rough customer, for his punitive methods were medieval. For instance, he would make his pupils hold up heavy stones, and would flog them when in their weariness they let the burden fall. Or he would compel the boys to hang to a bar until they were exhausted. On one occasion when the analysand had to say his lesson, his terror of this Busby made him tremble. The parents, who were well-meaning but weak persons, would do nothing to help the boy, for they did not believe his tale of the teacher's severities. Profound depres- sion was the immediate consequence. Nervous twitchings, which perhaps had been present in slight degree before, grew much worse. Throughout his school days he was obsessed by a phrase which greatly interfered with his thinking. It was " Duke Alba." Until the age of twenty-two he could not rid his mind from this obsessive phrase. As educationists we have to realise that the hindrances to a proper development are not only the unconscious antago- nists which at a given moment impose obstacles in the path, for we have also to take into account the influences which will unfavourably affect the later phases of education. We have to educate our pupils for the future, not only for the present. In the subject now under observation a well- marked anxiety hysteria developed. Outwardly, the most disturbing symptoms were violent nervous twitchings of the head, arm, and trunk. This man of twenty-eight is unable to lift a glass of water to his mouth ; literally, he has to bring his mouth down to the glass, for otherwise he would spill all the contents. Subjectively, he is even more disturbed by the frequent feeling that there is some one in the room ; for this reason he is continually turning towards the door. Formerly, he was quite unable to go out alone. Now he can force himself to do so, but would always rather have a companion. Ostensibly, he wants this for friendship's sake, but really he is looking for protection. In public places he feels that he is being watched, and his nervous tics gain upon him. When he thinks of anyone, of his mother for instance, after a few seconds the features he is visualising fade away, and are transformed into a dreadful and shadowy object, so that this anxiety hysteric is haunted by a ghost. He tries to exorcise the spectre, but it still haunts him for a time, until the face that he first desired to call up returns. This LOVE FOR BROTHERS AND SISTERS 203 young man has several times kissed a girl whom he loved, but at the moment of the kiss, the nervous spasm has seized him, for an instant he has lost all sense of reality ; the terrible shadow was there, and his own love was completely chilled. Then our youth, in his anxiety, would cling to his beloved ; the shadow would disappear, and this strange lover would have a remarkable feeling of being avenged. In aspect, the young hysteric was of a gentle and yielding disposition, quite incapable of self-defence. All the more remarkable is it that he can write extremely aggressive newspaper articles, articles which might endanger their author, upon matters which do not concern his own person. Lack of space makes it impossible for me to describe the analysis, and I can only outline its result. The patient's family history was a bad one. Of his brothers and sisters, two older than himself suffered from similar twitchings, and a younger sister had them even worse than himself. The parents were kindly but weak persons, who had never punished their children. Two of his elder brothers had gone to the bad. One of them had threatened his father with a revolver in order to extort money for drink; he had frequently made violent scenes, especially once at night, so that the police had been called in. These things had caused the analysand much trouble even before he went to school. When he was three or four years old, the house had been burned down, and his life had been in danger. He saw a woman perish in the flames. Shortly before or after this, he had had a dangerous fall from a terrace. When, at the age of nine, he was put under the charge of the harsh teacher, he was unable to overcome his difficulties by diligence and accommodation to the teacher's demands ; the earlier terrifying experiences were revived, and gave a tinge of anxiety to the existing occasions for alarm. That led him to regard his school circumstances as worse than they actually were. Quiet thought became an impossibility. Despite his natural gifts, his work was inefficient, and no good resolutions could overcome the evil effect of the anxiety. The twitchings were mainly an expression of the anxiety, but they also represented a forcible self-assertion as an escape from the sense of humiliation and depression. The obsession " Duke Alba," when associations were asked 204 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS for, promptly gave the following: " I always had this word in my mind, even when I was thinking of other things ; a persecutor ; my bad teacher ; Alba was a violent dictatorial man, ruthless, cruel, dry like the teacher's face."-Even now, after two decades, this teacher is the spectre which persecutes him, so that he continually has to look towards the door. But he did not realise this before the analysis. From fear of this spectre, he could not go out alone until recently; and even now he does not like being alone in the street. But there are also condensed with the teacher, the brothers who went to the bad, especially the one who had the revolver. I will give in his own words an account of the changes which take place when he visualises an individual, his mother for instance. We have heard that the image pales, and is transformed into a sinister, a dreadful spectre. I made the analysand fix his attention upon this, and give me the immediate associations uncritically. [The spectre.] It assumes various forms, but the syn- thesis of them all is a great head. It is lean, with huge rounded eyes, terrible, a sniggering face, full of devilish irony, like that of Mephistopheles. When he shows himself he obviously wants to say : " Aha, here I am ! " This is the chief form. [Look at it carefully.] When the teacher used to strike me, he always had this expression of face ; it was exactly the same. [Another form of the spectre.] There are two main forms ; the second is the form of a sinful man, of one who recognises having committed a great offence, and says : " For- give me, I am here, but only to crave your forgiveness. I am watching over you, be tranquil. You have done me no harm. I am grateful. . . When this shadow comes, I lack the courage to struggle. I let him come. Then a certain satisfaction passes over the shadow ; he disappears with an angel-like, paternal countenance. [The first head.] I immediately think of the master who used to ill-use me. The leanness, the roundness of the eyes, the devilish irony-in all these he closely resembled the shadow head. [The second shadow head.] The worst of my brothers. It is he in every detail. I longed for his death. LOVE FOR BROTHERS AND SISTERS 205 [I am watching over you.] One who dies becomes a spirit, and people say that he can watch over the living. In the dream he always gives me hope and consolation. We see that in this tormenting fantasy, the detested teacher continually plays the part of a bugbear, presenting himself indeed as a devil, whilst the brother who went to the bad, though he also has the aspect of a ghost, has nobler lineaments. He appears as a repentant sinner, who begs for forgiveness, and declares that no wrong has been done him, so that there is no occasion for revenge ; he watches over the family as a grateful spirit, as a guardian angel. The subject suffers because he wished for his brother's death, and dreads the vengeance of the deceased. The hallucinatory figure assures him that he has been pardoned, and that the one for whose death he had wished has become an angel, though this was not warranted by desert, and though forgiveness of sin had to be deserved. Unquestionably, such observa- tions are of considerable importance in relation to the psychology of the belief in demons. The ghost of the teacher will not let him alone. Even in his love affairs, the former pupil is haunted by this dis- turbing spectre. At the age of twenty-one, when the lad is kissing a girl he loves, the twitchings seize him, because his conscience is uneasy, because he accuses himself of levity, and therefore wishes to assert himself symbolically, through his automatic gestures. He wishes to escape from his trouble by abandoning the sense of reality. The attempt is fruitless. Immediately the dreaded spectre stands before him, like a punitive conscience, warning him against worse transgressions. For a moment, love vanishes, just as the sense of reality has vanished. But then the lover clings to the fragment of reality which has been so dear to him, and is now to be torn away from him, clings to his beloved, and reality gains the victory over the hallucination. The pupil therefore believes himself to have been avenged, for the ghost of the teacher is driven away defeated. The aim of the analysis was to show the patient the historical origin of his symptoms ; for that reason, the history of his early youth required careful investigation. Then I had to show to him what in his youth he was giving expression to and aiming at ; I had to disclose to him the nature of his 206 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS hostility to the teacher, the unwholesome and cruel attitude of mind that led him to call up the haunting spectre of this teacher as the devil. But also I had to prove to him that his anxiety, which led him to play the timid child, had as its aim to save him from the energetic utilisation of his powers, and thus to secure a gain out of an illness. I had to bring into the light of day these unethical manoeuvres against the teacher and against himself. When this had been done, the patient's own moral judgment set to work, and made him abjure such conduct. Thereupon the morbidly misdirected impulse sought issue in other paths, whose futility had in turn to be disclosed by the analysis. In the end, the impulse which had been forced into abnormal channels by the painful experience of childhood, took a turn towards spiritual and moral health. Complete cure resulted. Many children seem to be on excellent terms with their brothers and sisters, do not quarrel with these, are as accom- modating as possible in their behaviour, and even endure manifest injustice without complaint. They arouse the impression of being excellent, well-disposed, and gentle beings. And yet these apparent paragons may be burning with hatred and wrath, to which they give no obvious manifestation. From their earliest days they have been unable to defend their rights, have always had to repress their natural indignation, their embitterment. In conse- quence of this persistent repression, a morbid symptom will ultimately appear, a manifestation of the repressed hatred. I will give one example of the kind.1 A girl of twenty who was suffering from minor and easily curable hysterical symptoms (a slight squint, torticollis, twitching of the corners of the mouth, and depression) was also affected with an extremely distressing symptom-an obsessive love. She had an insuperable passion for the pastor who had confirmed her, which neither his earnest representations nor her own best endeavours could overcome. A remarkable feature of the case was that in the most solemn moments, especially in church, she had an irresistible desire to laugh, and at school she had several times been vainly punished on this account. Her story of her childhood was that she had been per- 1 Die psychanalytische Methode, p. 76. LOVE FOR BROTHERS AND SISTERS 207 sistently snubbed by her father, and had therefore taken a dislike to him, as also to her mother. She had never been able to get her due share of what was going. She was envious of her brothers and sisters-the family was a large one. The first irresistible impulse to laugh had seized her during the pastor's funeral sermon when her father was buried, the occasion being the clergyman's remark how distressing it was that the father had had to part from so large a family. The girl had liked attending the confirmation class, but she took a dislike to the teacher because he was too chary of com- mendation, while she was always delighted with any word of praise. The confirmation ceremony stirred her to laughter when the preacher exclaimed : " And you, father, and you, mother, do you not rejoice at the sight of your daughter ? " Removed to a distance from home, the girl fell passionately in love with one of her teachers, a woman who exhibited great tenderness for her, kissed her every evening, and overwhelmed her with affection when she was out of sorts. There was con- siderable reason to believe that her ailments were simply a means to extort tenderness. At this period, her religious fervour (which had previously been extreme) subsided ; but it revived after the separation from the object of her affections. After her return home, her feelings towards the pastor were cold, until one evening (doubtless by chance) he pressed her hand in a kindly fashion, omitting to give the same warm greeting to her sisters and friends who were present on the occasion. From this hour she had an enthusiastic passion for him. Obviously, she found in him a reincorporation of the father for whom she yearned, just as before she had detested him as a father-substitute. The irresistible laughter, whose initial stages were betrayed by the twitching of the corners of the mouth, was an indication of her pleasure at the father's death, and especially of her malicious feelings towards her brothers and sisters. (&) Love predominant in the Unconscious. There was once brought to me a boy aged fourteen-and-a- half years. He had a fierce hatred for his younger brother, whom he treated with incredible malevolence, despite all that was done by way of rewards and punishments in the hope of amending his conduct. The two boys shared the same 208 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS room. There were continual quarrels, in which the elder was always the aggressor, and always came off best. In addition to these troubles, the elder used to treat his room-mate in a remarkable way. When the younger boy was asleep, the elder would put his finger into his brother's mouth. Neither whippings nor rewards, nor moral admonitions, nor religious exhortations, were effective in stopping this practice. The boy simply said that he could not help doing what he did. He had several other compulsive hysterical symptoms. The analysis disclosed a sinister background. The main cause of the lad's illness was that he had been sexually misused by his companions, and was struggling in perverted ways against the vice which had been forced upon him. He was a member of a school society which practised the most detestable orgies. Thus he had been homosexually misused, and had found pleasure in these excesses. He therefore endeavoured to win over his brother as object of his debased pleasures. The brother had rejected his overtures with dis- gust. The introduction of the finger into the brother's mouth was simply a caricature of these excesses. What he could not achieve in reality was to be achieved in a simulated fashion. The offender had absolutely no idea in the con- scious that this wish was dominant; that is why, morning after morning, he seemed to be constrained by a dark force to perform the apparently meaningless act. The expert will readily understand why no educational measures were of the slightest help, for they did not touch the primary cause of the acts, the wish for the symbolical exercise of the perverse lust. But the analysis readily put an end to the trouble, and greatly improved the relations between the two brothers.1 In this case it was an extremely objectionable form of inclination, a base sensual lust, which underlay the hatred, and occasioned the misconduct. But thoroughly ethical and affectionate desires, such as the wish for a friendly exchange of ideas, or the wish for a joint excursion, may, if unfulfilled, lead to quarrels. Quarrelsome brothers and sisters are often the subjects of an unhappy love. However envious and jealous of one another they may be, in the depths the lava of love is often * Cf. Die psychanalytischc Methode, p. 136. LOVE FOR BROTHERS AND SISTERS 209 glowing, is yearning to emerge from its imprisonment, is pressing against the earth's crust without finding a free exit. Bickerings and quarrels are often no more than the smoke which betrays the existence of this hidden love, this love which cannot find a normal vent. The following example shows that such causation may underlie even the most savage outbursts of hatred. In my book Analytische Untersuchungen uber die Psychologie des Hasses und der Versbhnung, I record the case of a boy who could not endure his brother, and cherished wishes for the latter's death. Asked to utter a string of words that arose freely in his thoughts, within a few minutes he had given the cues of twenty fantasies of the cruellest description. In these the brother died of incurable mental disorder; the brother, diving, was murdered by the analysand under water ; the brother remained hanging by a chain under water; his body, like Alaric's, was sunk in the Busento ; he had a bicycle accident, a side-slip ; he was stabbed ; he was executed as a murderer ; he floated as a corpse in the Dead Sea ; his body was dragged along by a chain ; and so on. But the analysis showed that behind these fantasies there lurked a strong desire for the brother, which sometimes manifested itself even in the conscious in the form of jealously of the detested brother's playmates. Yet in the images arising out of the preconscious and the unconscious, hatred predominated. In such instances, hatred is merely the representative of a pre- dominant love in the unconscious. This fact may serve to enlighten those who have fallen into the error of believing that psychoanalysis can only disclose the unlovely side of human nature. CHAPTER TEN LOVE FOR OTHERS The first persons with whom a child becomes intimately acquainted form the exemplars by which he judges other persons. The child either compares or contrasts others with those it is best acquainted with. 1. Parent-Substitutes. A schoolboy aged eighteen used invariably to show great alarm when called upon by the teacher to take his turn. Since he suffered from grave inhibitions of feeling, I subjected him to analysis, and found that the cause of the anxiety was a substitution for the father who had once caught the lad at an assignation, and had treated him very roughly. Thus the teachers, being elders entitled to respect, had to bear the brunt of the feelings which were really directed against the father. They had to eat the soup which the father had cooked. In the present work we have already encountered similar instances. The girl who idolised her father, and who at sight of him experienced an access of religious fervour (see p. 130), had a passionate affection for her older male teachers, and would have liked to remain a schoolgirl all her life, so that she could feel herself to be playing the part of a little daughter. -The girl who had a fixed idea of the imminent death of her father, transferred to some of her older male teachers the refulgence that radiated from her father (see p. 139). Young men among her teachers, however able they might be, did not affect her in this way, for they could not act as father- substitutes. On the other hand, we saw the teacher and other persons in authority come into bad odour with the impressionist 210 LOVE FOR OTHERS 211 artist who had been at odds with his father ; these elders were likewise father-substitutes (see pp. 152 et seq.). In a humorous anecdote, a sentinel kills a number of hostile soldiers who climb over a wall one after the other, and thinks that it is the same soldier over and over again. Conversely, many a son will love or hate quite a number of different persons in authority, really taking them all in succession to be the same person-the father. This person in authority may be the school teacher, the military superior, the party leader, an artist, a man of science, a hero, the sovereign, he may be Schiller or Goethe, Napoleon or Hindenburg or Foch-any notable of the neighbourhood, any distinguished contemporary, or any great personality in history. Even the most diverse figures of fantasy can be indued with the affects which really appertain to the father. In like manner the mother may appear in a new edition as some person of the environment. Any grown woman, on the strength of few or many characteristics comparable to or contrasting with those of the mother, may be regarded with liking or disliking because she has come to be considered as a mother-substitute. Even young women and young men may function as mother-substitutes. A man of about thirty-five gets into a furious rage if his wife places the soup tureen on the table so that the notch for the soup-ladle points towards him ; and he is similarly enraged if she puts her finger in a certain position. A careful analysis disclosed that in his boyhood his stepmother had in the kitchen once threatened him with a soup-ladle ; and that this dreaded and detested woman had had a habitual gesture similar to the one he dislikes in his wife. Thus his wrath was not really directed against his wife, an admirable woman with whom he is in general on excellent terms, but towards the stepmother who has long since been rendered harmless by death. Eccentrics, naggers, sulky folk, grum- blers, and the like, are mostly persons who are persistently bent upon a feud with father or mother. They are living always under the eyes of the father and mother, though these may have died long since. Their views of their fellow human beings; of the State, society, and the moral law ; are formed on the parental model. They behave as if the parent 212 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS towards whom the repressed, and unconscious, or but partly conscious, hatred is directed, were still fully extant. We shall encounter numerous additional examples of such a transference of the parental attribute to other persons. Since at the moment we are only trying to supply data for general conclusions, we shall refrain at this juncture from giving additional instances. Conversely, excellent and kindly persons will not receive due appreciation from children affected with a parental fixation, simply because these persons do not fit into the parental scheme. Their defects are liable to be greatly overestimated if they are defects from which the parents are free. 2. Brother-and-Sister-Substitutes. I have said that the attitude towards brothers and sisters is closely connected with the attitude towards the parents. And yet our brothers and sisters, at any rate the younger ones among them, do not occupy a parental position towards us. They are not-or as a rule they are not-persons in authority with whom we have to strive in order to secure a right to our own lives. They are rivals and competitors, and they provide the child's loving sentiments with new and important objects. The bold or timid, the affectionate or antagonistic, nature of this relationship is readily transferred to any persons who may happen to have some sort of resemblance to brothers or sisters. In many cases, again, it may happen, that a child which is repelled by brothers or sisters, will conceive a strong affection for other persons, and will seek from them what it fails to secure at home. We may often observe that the characteristics which grown persons project upon contem- poraries or juniors, have been derived, not from brothers or sisters, but from other companions of the days of youth. III. The Love of the Child for Persons and Things outside the Home CHAPTER ELEVEN LOVE OF ANIMALS, NATURE, LANDSCAPE, NATIVE LAND, AND INANIMATE OBJECTS i. Like and Dislike for Animals. When children display an immoderate love for animals, they have certainly undergone an inhibition in their relationship towards human beings. Just as Schopenhauer, repelled by his fellows, conceived a great tenderness for animals, so do many children which, afflicted like the philosopher with harsh and unloving parents, are unable to find compensation in other persons or in religion. A cult of animals on the part of children may arise in either of two ways, though in many cases these two ways are confluent. The animal may be a father-substitute or a mother-substitute, or it may symbolically represent the child's own personality. It may be loved or hated because in the child's unconscious it represents the father or the mother, or because it represents qualities whose absence in the parents is a grief to the child. In an animal, a child may love or hate the destiny that it desires or dreads for itself, or it may love or hate certain qualities which it would gladly possess or be free from. Finally, the child's attitude towards an animal may be the outcome of some purely external tie, the animal playing a significant part in various experiences. Underlying these factors of like and dislike are fundamental energies, such as a sadistic or a masochistic trend, a caressive impulse, the desire for revenge, etc. In Zulliger's essay Psychanalytische Erfahrungen aus dev 213 214 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS Volksschulpraxis,1 there is a fine example of the way in which a child, tormenting an animal, will regard itself as the father, while the animal represents the child. Here the hatred for a cat which a child is maltreating is really felt for the father ; just as in a charming story by Ebner-Eschenbach a child's anger directed against a Pome- ranian bitch who is seeking her puppies represents the child's hatred for its mother-the child was illegitimate, and was grossly neglected. In Zulliger's instance, the animal is a positive substitute; in Ebner-Eschenbach's instance, the substitution is by contrast. Freud has shown how a longing for the father's death may be atoned for by deifying the father in the symbolic form of an animal. Totemism, the selection of an animal as reputed progenitor and guardian angel of a tribe, is, I think, adequately explained by this brilliant theory of Freud's, which finds abundant confirmation. The same theory accounts for the remarkable marriage prohibitions associated with totemism. The following example shows how a child, loving an animal, may symbolically be loving itself. A lady patient of mine had in her childhood manifested an inordinate love for suffering animals. The distress occasioned by seeing a horse beaten would throw her into a state of great excitement. She was always looking out for afflicted creatures to take care of-wounded cats, lame dogs, broken-winged crows, etc. She felt a like sympathy for ill-used children. On one occasion she flung herself like a wild cat upon a big boy who was bullying a smaller lad ; she seized him by the necktie and struck him in the face with her clenched fist, fiercely screaming, " You ought to be ashamed of yourself ! " She naturally had a bad time of it. She had a profound contempt for mankind. To anticipate, I may say that these keen sympathies dominated her whole life. At the age of nineteen she became engaged to be married in remarkable circumstances. Her betrothed was suffering from severe heart disease, and died * Vol. v of Seelenkunde und Erziehungskunst, Bircher, Berne and Leipzig, pp. 130-144. To vol. i of this collective work, I myself contributed other examples, in an essay entitled Die Behandlung schwer erziehbarer und abnormer kinder (pp. 62 et seq.). LOVE OF ANIMALS 215 shortly before the date fixed for the marriage. She then became affianced to a consumptive, a lonely invalid who would never have ventured to make any advances to her. She was greatly distressed at the prospect of marrying a man suffering from this transmissible disease, and that by her own action she was destined to bring sickly children into the world. I need not give a detailed account of the unhappiness of her married life down to the time of the analysis. The abnormally intense love for animals originated in the following way. As a little girl she had been weak and sickly. She was one of the younger children of a large family, and her parents showed her little affection. She suffered from a sense of inferiority when she compared herself with her vigorous brothers and sisters. Her nurses and governesses used to make a sort of bogey of her father and her mother, so that her dominant feeling for them was one of dread. Under the influence of a harsh upbringing, her brothers and sisters became rough and cruel. Her brothers had a taste for sport, and would shoot perfectly harmless creatures. The direction taken by her sympathies was partly due to the way in which she had been led astray in childhood. When she and some other children were playing the game of doctor and patient, she was initiated into the practice of improper manipulations of herself and of the others. Hitherto she had been of a frank disposition ; she now became reserved, melancholy, and unamiable. She was unable to break off the evil habit. When she was about nine years old, her conscience began to reproach her, and this led her to with- draw from her playmates because shame overcame her in their presence. Subsequently, the masturbation was replaced by erotic fantasies, which aroused strong sensations. There can be no doubt that when this little girl felt sympathy with illtreated animals, these animals were symbols of herself. This direction of her sympathy was an idealised repetition of the forbidden game of doctor and patient ; we may perhaps describe it as a sort of atonement for this ; anyhow it was a respectably draped substitute for the original offence. Many children like or dislike cats as embodiments of agreeable or disagreeable characteristics. Little girls with a 216 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS strongly caressive disposition are usually fond of cats. One little girl who hated cats did so because of their caterwauling at night, since this betokened for her an unbridled sexuality. The association was, however, wholly or mainly unconscious. Conscious motives may of course cooperate ; a fear that dogs will snap ; disagreeable experiences with cattle ; and so on. But, though less commonly recognised, unconscious motives are peculiarly effective. I may remind the reader of the dread inspired by mice, frogs, blind-worms, cock- chafers, etc. It can be proved that such terrors, and also a dread of thunderstorms, only arise when the love-longing has been stimulated but has remained ungratified. I need hardly say that there may be liking or disliking for animals which is quite devoid of repressed elements. In such cases the animal may have been a playmate, may have attacked the child, and so on. 2. For Nature, Landscape, and Native Land. A landscape or countryside derives its attractive force or the reverse, not from its inner value or worthlessness, but from its relationship to a child's memories, demands, or fantasies. Should a landscape arouse memories of places with which pleasing reminiscences are connected, it will probably be found pleasing ; and conversely. Quite as often, however, a child's liking or disliking in such cases depends upon symbolic values. A vigorous and affectionate child is fond of cheerful prospects ; a lonely and melancholy child will prefer misty landscapes, ravines, autumnal scenes bearing the sign manual of death. A lad of my acquaintance, to whom the desert and the sea appeared preeminent for natural beauty, and who was an ardent lover of solitude, grew up into an unhappy man, caring for nobody and longing for death. (See further details of this case on pp. 220-221.) An introverted boy, one who is extremely reserved, one who lacks the ability for an affectionate adaptation to his environment, will be apt to display a fondness for the savage grandeur of mountain scenery, whose defiant loneliness and vastness symbolise for him his own half-conscious longings. A gentle and sentimental youth, on the other hand, will prefer the charming and quiet landscapes that harmonise with his own mood. Thus the aesthetic and emotional LOVE OF ANIMALS 217 impressions aroused in us by a landscape are dependent upon the symbolism we interpolate into it and upon our own affective attitude towards that symbolism. Full of inspiration for us are the scenes which we can interpret in the light of a symbolisation strongly tinged with affects in conformity with our own needs. When we find that a child exhibits a passion for natural scenery, to the practical exclusion of other interests, we have good grounds for suspecting that the subject's relationship to fellow beings is an unwholesome one. Moreover, solitary roaming favours day-dreams, of which we shall have to speak later. Nature lies passively awaiting admiration, and makes no direct claims on the beholder. Our country in the political sense of the word may also function as a parent-substitute. At the outbreak of the great war, one of my subjects began to display an unpre- cedented enthusiasm for her fatherland. At imminent risk she made her way into the front trenches; she grossly calumniated the subjects of the enemy state, and thus became involved in disagreeable legal proceedings ; and, inspired by patriotism, she gravely neglected her family duties, without thereby being of any service to her country. The analysis disclosed that in her case the country was a mother-sub- stitute, for from early years she had had a craving for a mother's love. An Irishman, who hated England as much as he loved Ireland, was shown, when psychoanalysed by Ewald Jung, to be hating his father and loving his mother in these respective embodiments. I have known a case in which the nati .e language was regarded with intense dislike-a dislike which was really directed against the mother. 3. For inanimate Objects. In concluding this chapter, I must point out that in like manner a child's liking or disliking may be directed towards all sorts of inanimate objects. The girl whose case is recorded on p. 139 had an irresistible impulse to kiss the drawings of flowers in books she was reading. When she had come to the end, she would be seized with anxiety lest any might have been overlooked, and the pantomime would begin afresh. 218 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS Her feeling was that she was not sufficiently loved. This was not because her parents had failed towards her in any respect, but because from earliest childhood she had repressed a desire for their death, and because she projected into the parents the antipathy underlying her own consciously felt love. The dread that one of the flowers might have been left unkissed, envisaged in actual fact the personality of the subject herself. A hysterical girl had, during childhood, intense sympathy with the blanket which was put away when the springtime came ; she had a similar feeling for unused shoes. In this case, too, there was a yearning for parents' love. A lad of about eighteen had a passion for a blanket which he had christened " Fanny." Its loss when he was on holiday in the mountains was a profound grief to him. There can be no doubt that this blanket was for him a symbol for the beloved, though he was quite unaware of the fact. On the other hand, the youth whose case has already been discussed on p. 186 et seq., had loathed, when a boy, the stone coat-of-arms affixed to a neighbouring house. He fancied himself able to discern the form of a witch amid the heraldic sculptures. We have learned how much he suffered under his mother, although he had been unable to make any Open display of his hatred for this well-intentioned woman. She, therefore, become the witch in the coat-of-arms. How difficult it is to perceive things as they really are, and to appraise them at their true value ! The unconscious will even manufacture a puzzle picture for the realisation of repressed wishes.1 1 Ci. Pfister, Kryptolalie, Kryptographie und unbewusstes Vexierbild bei Normalen, " Jahrbuch fur psychoanalytische Forschungen," v, 1913. CHAPTER TWELVE LIKE AND DISLIKE FOR THE ACQUIREMENTS OF CIVILISATION AND FOR SOCIAL CONVENTIONS In general, we are far too much inclined to regard preferences for particular vocations, for this or that science or art, and for the other requirements of civilisation, as dependent upon inborn talents. In reality, human beings resemble trees in which many buds fail to develop properly as compared with others which have been more privileged to enjoy the kisses of the sun, or in which portions have been affected with unfavourable conditions of growth through their proximity to the post by which the immature sapling was supported. An attentive teacher will often notice that the gifts which secure the most sedulous cultivation are far from being those likely to induce the maximum efficiency and welfare of their possessor. How often does a child neglect the capacities which are really the most promising, while striving in a direction where, in the most favourable event, nothing can be secured but the bread of mediocrity. The kindly pedagogue often endeavours to convince a pupil that this or that choice of profession is best adapted to the latter's faculties and external situation ; he may be perfectly right as far as reasoned considerations are concerned, and yet may be reckoning without the host, inasmuch as he is overlooking the all-powerful unconscious. The most reasonable counsels are unreasonable in particular cases-when the reason is paralysed. i. The preparatory School of Play.1 In play, the child is anticipating the seriousness of life. Building a stage for itself, it reigns there both as playwright 1 Cf. S. Pfeiffer, Aeusserungen infantil-erotischer Triebe im Spiele, " Imago," v, pp. 243-282. 219 220 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS and as actor. Making for itself a facsimile of life, it exercises the powers that it will need in the struggle for existence. It grapples with the difficulties which reality thrusts upon it, doing this instinctively to some extent, and in part also thanks to the teachings of experience. The child thus seeks in symbolical activities for a solution which real life cannot provide. It creates symbolical fulfilments of the wishes which actual life, in its parsimony, contemns Thus play is an elder brother of art, an elder brother who has not yet scaled the heights of art. Play is primitive drama, just as drama is spiritualised play. The beginnings of the drama can be traced back beyond religious ceremonial into the games of childhood. The development of love passes in great measure through the gateway of play. Playing with dolls is a preparation for motherhood ; the future educationist, parson, soldier, coach- man, shipwright, gardener, etc., ushers himself into his career by the play way, feeling out towards the ends of real life. Unstable and mutable as these attempts may appear, they are far from being without significance. The play of children is instinct with the earnestness of life, whereas much which in adults masquerades as vital earnestness should really be esteemed as nothing better than trifling. In the play of children we can perceive love in its initial stages, wooing and offering ; we can discern the selfish love of those who look upon others merely as means for their own ends ; and we can detect the love of those to whom the good of others is supreme, of those who cannot attain satis- faction without self-sacrifice. Play discloses likewise how love has grown weak, and shows us when a convulsive self- assertion of the ego, a desire to down rivals, a craving for isolation, or the pursuit of revenge for illtreatment of the love need, has become the main object of life. In my essay Das Kinderspiel als Fruhsymptom krankhafter Entwicklung,1 I adduced the case of a boy whose love sentiment had already undergone marked aberration. He dreamed of himself as a savage, ranging nude through the most solitary places ; when the family washing was hung out in the sunshine he would creep up to it and would solemnly 1 Zum Kampf um die Psychoanalyse, pp. 429-462. LIKE AND DISLIKE 221 mimic the desert dweller as he stretched out his bared foot into the warmth of the sun. He would make little cardboard boats, sailing them in the deepest parts of the Pacific Ocean, and would then sink his craft to the accompaniment of a sad song. This proceeding was a symbolical suicide. As a supplement, he would play at classifying the most diversified objects-the rooms of a house, occupations, railway stations, etc. The former game retained an interest in the world of reality, but removed the lonely theatre of action to the ends of the earth ; the latter game deprived reality of its signifi- cance, and gave satisfaction to the faculty for arrangement. From both we can recognise that the boy felt unhappy in his actual environment. The same boy exhibited intense sympathy for a discarded feeding bottle, and wept over it bitterly ; the contemptuous treatment of this article was for him symbolical of his own situation. In early manhood, the introvert passed through a difficult crisis, for he was unable to achieve a normal affective relationship towards his associates. Another boy, who was being brought up by straightlaced female relatives, used to play the following game every evening. Out of handkerchiefs he would make dolls with plumed headdress and flowing robes. Then there would be a fight between one such " count " and his enemy. The count would be overcome, and would be put to death with his relatives, who were all women. As soon as the whole company had been duly hanged, the boy could go to sleep. He had no notion that in this way he was slaughtering his father and his unloved aunts. A third boy, inspired with hatred for a chaplain who had punished him unjustly, aiding himself with multicoloured wrappings, played the part of this admired and detested man, learned extracts from the Mass in Latin, and ultimately became affected with an irresistible impulse to utter un- meaning words (verbigeration). How prisoned he felt himself to be was shown by his behaviour one day when he was about six years old. With a cord he tied himself to the house door so effectively that he could not loose himself, and had to call to his mother for aid. She quite failed to recognise the inner 222 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS significance of his conduct, to understand his craving for love and sympathy, or to realise his need for spiritual enfranchise- ment. A few years later, he gave the most forcible expression to his detestation of his father and the priests. Out of his excrement he fashioned medals which were to represent images of the saints, and then, in passionate excitement, he reiterated again and again : " These are thy gods ! " For this blasphemy he punished himself unconsciously, inasmuch as during divine service, which lasted two hours, he was tormented by an urgent desire to go to stool. He prayed fervently for power to control the desire until service was over, so that he should not have to run the gauntlet of all eyes when leaving the church. On one occasion, however, he was forced to leave, but found he had delayed too long. For the greater part of the week he suffered from pains in the rectum, but the next Sunday he would as usual forget to take the precaution of going to stool before Mass. Day-dreams may also be included in the realm of play. The boy just mentioned was accustomed for a long time to elaborate the following fantasies. The church is transformed into a menagerie. He is the proprietor, and exhibits to the public the animals confined in the cages. The girls are sitting in the gallery, and the young proprietor and manager makes a great impression on them. In another fantasy he is in heaven, where he plays the part of bellringer. He thus enjoys a threefold advantage : he is in heaven ; he is throned over all the others ; and whereas they have to go to church, he is freed from this disagreeable duty. (Cf. Chapter xvi, 3.) At a later date, this boy, likewise, could find no issue from his incapsulation. He suffered from numerous com- pulsions ; was incompetent to collect himself spiritually, and was affected with melancholy-until the analysis came to his relief. Those interested in the psychology of childhood would do well to make a careful study of such abnormal play. Grave crippling of the mind might be averted if teachers were better acquainted with the language of play. 2. School. In one of my own essays I have attempted to prove that many students make a bad showing at school because of LIKE AND DISLIKE 223 the cramping of their love life ; and that, conversely, many who become leaders of their class and are looked upon as models are really in the same category, deserve the utmost sympathy, and should be regarded with grave anxiety.1 The personality of the teacher is of preponderant impor- tance, not only as regards the pupils' comfort and their general liking for study, but also as regards their interest in individual subjects ; this statement of course concerns the teacher's professional qualifications, but it also concerns the com- parisons the pupil will make between the teacher's personality and that of the parents. We have already learned (Chap- ter x, § i) that a child measures its teacher by the image of the parents. If the comparison is favourable to the teacher, the child may shower on the teacher a love which it cannot feel for the parents. This will redound greatly to the advantage of the pupil's studies. In many cases there is a positive dread of thinking ; the first slight stirrings of the thirst for knowledge are annulled by the fear of possible failure. I have noted how for years a talented pupil with a dislike or dread of the teacher has been regarded as a dunce ; but when these hindrances were removed, the natural talent was freely displayed. If a skilful teacher is able to overcome the pupil's ten- dency to invest him with the attributes of a harsh parent, the antipathy will often give place to cordial love, intense gratitude, and imperturbable confidence. In normal instances, a child's need for love is so abundant that it cannot be satisfied even by the best of parents. The teacher naturally offers himself as the first bridge between the parents and other persons whom the child can regard with respect. If the teacher becomes a new edition of an unloved father, or if he compares unfavourably with a highly respected father, the pupil's dislike for the teacher is apt to be extended to the subjects of study. A distaste for school is often, in reality, a distaste for the teacher. We deliver upon the panier the blows which are meant for the donkey ; we detest the topics of study when the basic objects of our dislike are 1 Vermeintliche Nullen und angebliche Musterkinder, being vol. iv of Schriften zur Seelenkunde und Erziehungskunst, Bircher, Berne and Leipzig, 1921, 224 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS the spiritual tenders of the teacher. Of course there are in most cases special contributory causes, such as bad methods of teaching, uncongenial schoolfellows (who can exercise a most unfavourable influence upon a pupil's career), etc. But the main factor is the personality of the teacher, whether we have to do with pupils of normal or with those of abnormal development. Consequently, in one and the same subject of study a pupil may appear now competent and now incom- petent, according as the teacher wins his affection or arouses his antipathy. Maeder relates the case of a pupil who, though highly gifted, seemed no better than a dunce in those subjects in which his detested father wished him to excel, whereas the lad's talents were fully displayed in those fields which enjoyed the favour of the greatly loved mother.1 We must, however, guard against unduly simplifying the causation. In each instance, countless conditions are at work, and only a few of these can be elucidated in the par- ticular case. A preference for special subjects of study, a preference exaggerated to the degree of morbid idolisation, can be connected with love in another way. An illused child can find in religious instruction that which human beings fail to supply. Especially may this happen when sinister threats have aroused terror. On p. 168 et seq. I have related the case of a little boy six or seven years old who prayed that God would help him to pass in safety the terrible spot where a spectre har- boured. Suddenly, to his amazement, he found himself intact at the house door. To him, the only possible inter- pretation of the lapse of consciousness was the belief that a miracle had been wrought on him by angel hands. Through- out the week this boy used to look forward with tremulous yearning to the Sunday school in which he was to spend such happy hours. But we can now understand at what a cost of happiness and peace they were secured. Pupils with a special fondness for history are often among those who are peculiarly inapt for the performance of the ordinary tasks of daily life. The writing lesson gives a chance for the expression of manifold developments of love. A very neat, almost copper- 1 Berner SeininarbUtter, vol. vi, 1912, p. 295. LIKE AND DISLIKE 225 plate, handwriting often gives expression to the wish to deaden pricks of conscience concerning moral impurity. (The reader must be careful to avoid generalising this state- ment unduly.) The abnormal formation of certain letters, and in especial the persistent reproduction of apparently unmeaning malformations, which neither rewards nor punish- ments, neither precepts nor the utmost care, can enable the pupil to avoid for any long time, are usually the outcome of compulsions associated with the cramping of sexuality or of the love life in its wider significance.1 The foregoing examples may suffice. It would be easy to show in respect of every subject of study how the amatory life can cultivate its garden either in a normal or in an abnormal way. But we have renounced the aspiration towards an exhaustive systematism, and are merely en- deavouring to disclose a selection of the normalities and the aberrations of love. 3. Reading. Reading helps the child, not only to enlarge its knowledge of life and mankind beyond the narrow field of personal experience, but also in some degree to satisfy its love need (in so far as this fails to secure satisfaction in the persons of the child's own environment) by directing it towards salient figures in literature. Whatever is appropriate to the love yearning, arouses interest and pleasure ; that which is unrelated to the yearning, leaves the reader indifferent ; that which is antagonistic, arouses dislike. It must, however, be remembered that we are not concerned with an isolated will-to-love, for in the love process, just as in sexual conation, other passions always cooperate-the longing for freedom or enslavement, for self-respect or self-contempt, for the exercise of power or for passivity. All reading is subject to the influence of the identificatory impulse. Unconsciously, the reader reads himself and his associates into the written record. In the hero we seek out ourselves, as we would fain be if we could rearrange our destiny exactly as we should like. We love the person who overcomes the difficulties which we ourselves have to face. We love the father-substitute, the mother-substitute, 1 Ct, Zulliger, op. cit., pp. 100 et seq. 226 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS the friend-substitute, the ideal figure of the well-beloved ; we hate our enemy, and delight in his downfall. The greatest work of art leaves us cold unless we can rediscover in it our own world. The more effective the satisfaction we can find for the life urge and the love urge in poetry, history, or geography, the fonder we are of these subjects. The moral tales in which the good are invariably and extravagantly rewarded and in which the bad are just as promptly and thoroughly punished, the religious histories in which God never fails to intervene at the appropriate moment in order to give things a happy turn, delight children so long as they are able to believe in the reality of such an ideal world and imaginatively to play their own parts in it; but these stories lose their charm as soon as the criticism of reality has done its work upon the accounts of such stereotyped relationships. Consequently, taste develops with the biological development of the reader. From stories of the good little boy and the good little girl, the via amorosa leads the growing reader through the world of fable, on the one hand towards tales of adventure and on the other towards schoolgirl novels, thence to historical novels, to love stories, etc. In the choice of books, therefore, no less than in play, there are reflected the evolution and the aberration of the love life. An immoderate passion for reading betrays great dissatisfaction with the world of reality. The varieties of spiritual conflict are often closely reflected in the choice of reading matter. Even in youths who have not yet grown to manhood, among those who are weary of life, I have frequently noted a predilection for descriptions of suicide. The lad whose case was recorded on p. 220, the boy who was out of harmony with his associates and loved to picture himself as a solitary settler in the wilderness, delighted in reading Robinson Crusoe. Works on natural history were devoured by the youth (see p. 195) who, owing to an incestuous fixation and a masturbatory urge, had from his earliest years been deeply concerned with the mysteries of reproduction. A little stammerer who detested his father and tormented his schoolfellows, devoured the most blood- curdling Red Indian tales he could procure ; Karl May was his favourite author. A fanatical veneration for patriotic tales betokens more often an unconscious wish for a father- LIKE AND DISLIKE 227 substitute than dependence on the father. Nevertheless, an excessive aversion to the father is more likely to induce a preference for revolutionary writings. Boys and youths whose minds are tormented with self-reproach on account of sexual malpractices, are apt to display a passionate liking for religious penitential literature. If these children which seek refuge from the actual world in the world of literary imagination are deprived of their reading matter, the usual result is to submerge them more deeply than ever in their subjectivism, and to increase the difficulties in the way of a return to reality. On the other hand, wise guidance in this matter of reading will facilitate the overcoming of introversion, if it be not too extreme. A girl of seventeen (to whose case we shall have to return when considering peculiarities in the choice of a husband) told me of an abnormal mental shock she had experienced at the theatre. The play was Schiller's Bride of Messina. So great had been her nervous excitement that it had been necessary to keep her in bed for four days. Thenceforward she was absolutely determined to become an actress. I learned these facts when the girl was sent to consult me on account of melancholia. Upon medical advice, she had recently been ordered a change of air, in the hope that this would cure her, but the melancholy had speedily returned, for her spiritual conflict could not be overcome by so simple a measure. At the first interview she confided to me that she had been in love with a young man and had given herself to him in the spiritual sense. Then, repenting this, she had been favourable to the wooing of another youth who was the classmate of the former. Thereafter, unsolicited, came the account of the effect which Schiller's play had had upon her. [The Bride of Messina.] The elder of the two brothers in the tragedy. He is grave and noble-minded. The younger is hot-tempered. My new lover is hot-tempered too. So is my father. He used often to beat me, and has even done so this year. The elder brother in the play is like my first lover, and the latter is like my father in outward appearance. He has the same way of telling anything. I was passionately 4. Art, its Appreciation and its Practice. 228 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS fond of him, but only when he was absent. Now I am picturing to myself the mother in the play. The elder brother wants to confess his love for the nun. Now I am picturing how delighted the mother is that peace has been restored between them. My two lovers knew one another, and quarrelled. I have often had the wish to make as many men as possible unhappy. A little while ago I saw an amateur representation of Schiller's The Robbers, and I felt drawn to the man who was playing Karl Moor. I think he is in love with me. Perhaps the story of the two brothers in The Bride of Messina might be repeated. [The elder brother is grave and noble-minded.] My father used to be awfully nice to me and liked me better than the others. He was grave. [The younger brother in the tragedy.] Mother. She is hot-tempered. [The mother in the tragedy.] My grandmother is like her. She behaves in exactly the same way. She often restores peace between Father and Grandfather. Interpretation. The play made such an impression upon the girl because, without being aware of the fact, she found in it a representation of her own family history. The family quarrel which makes her own life difficult is projected into the drama, whose leading characters are identified with her grandmother, her father, and her mother. The reason for the intensity of the mental shock is that the staging of the play reveals to the daughter's unconscious the death of her father and her mother as the solution of her own spiritual conflict. It is probable that long-standing repressed wishes for the death of the parents are nourished by the sight of the play and acquire a new fixity, but all this is hidden from the conscious. Her prompt determination to become an actress betrays the desire to help in the realisation of the fundamental ideas of the play. Noteworthy is the manner in which she actually transfers the scenic treatment into her own life. She is the Bride of Messina, inasmuch as she has been the occasion of fierce jealousy between two classmates (brothers). There can be no doubt that she had led her second wooer on, though it is of course impossible to say how far the incitement was conscious. Beyond question, she was not consciously aware that she was playing the part LIKE AND DISLIKE 229 of the Bride of Messina, and still less was she consciously thinking of the realisation of wishes for the death of her parents. The elder brother and first lover represents the father in his nobler and finer aspect, which used to predominate : the younger brother and second lover embodies on the one hand the father's fierce temper which conflicts with the pleasing aspect of his nature, and thus dissociates him into two personalities (cf. Goethe as Tasso and Antonio, as Faust and Mephistopheles) ; on the other hand he embodies the no less hot-tempered mother, who is likewise capricious, and is spendthrift like the second lover. The daughter, who believes herself neglected by her parents and yet has a craving for their love, wishes that both her parents should love her ardently and should make away with themselves. In this way the love longing and the desire for revenge both come into their own. Since the first attempt towards wish-fulfilment is but partially successful-inasmuch as the parent-substitutes, though they hate one another savagely for her sake, do not have recourse to extreme measures-, a new arrangement is conceived after witnessing a play which treats of a quarrel between brothers. What was the outcome of this is un- known to me, for the girl passed out of my ken. Since she had suicidal tendencies, I was unwilling to continue the analysis without medical cooperation, and I therefore sent her to a physician. The latter, ignoring the obligation of medical secrecy, informed the headmaster that the girl was insane and was unfitted for school life. In the most brutal fashion, she was then and there sent away from the school, although in my opinion a cure of her trouble would not have been difficult. She did not become an actress, and she did not commit suicide. Beyond this, I do not know what happened to her. I learned something from this girl which throws an interesting light upon the psychology of musical apprecia- tion. From early childhood she had been fond of music, and especially of songs, but she was always " carried away by them," so that she could not go on listening, and began to weep. She first suffered in this way on hearing a song in her first school class. 230 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS [The song heard in the first school class.] A girl is sitting by her brother's grave and is strewing flowers upon it. Be- fore I had begun to go to school I heard my father and my brother sing this song together. I could never bear to listen to it, for it always made me cry. I always felt that they made more of my brother than of me. How does the girl transpose herself into the scene of the song ? Does she merely feel sympathy with the dead brother ? This would not explain the abnormally powerful emotional reaction. The fact that she felt her parents made more of her brother than of herself, in conjunction with her whole mental condition, suggests another interpretation. We may suppose that the powerful impression was produced in a similar way as when she witnessed The Bride of Messina. The song about the dead brother made a vent for the wish : " If only this were about my brother ! Then I could play the part of the sorrowful sister, and at the same time I should be freed from my detested rival ! " Thus it is that our attitude in artistic matters is often closely connected with the developments and aberrations of the love need. The same remark applies to the practice of the arts. A member of the audience at my lectures on education gave me an excellent instance of this. She was headmistress of a private school. One day the mothers of several of the girls came to demand the expulsion of a little girl who, they said, had behaved most improperly, inciting their own daughters to sexual malpractices, and throwing dung at the other girls. The headmistress rightly insisted that simple expulsion would do the offender no good. The first requisite was a psychological investigation into her mental condition. During the next lesson, the pupils were told to draw sketches of anything that came into their mind. The offender drew the following : A railway bridge high over a stream. Right and left are tunnels, from which trains are emerging. In the middle of the bridge is a boy, who wants to throw him- self into the stream before the collision. Below, however, demons with tridents are lying in wait. Here is depicted a fully developed anxiety situation. Often among such drawings, when the whole class has been allowed to work fancy free, I have found unmistakable in- LIKE AND DISLIKE 231 dications of a love that was partly conscious and partly unconscious. Especially instructive are apparently un- meaning linear designs drawn " without thinking " (that is to say under the guidance of the unconscious) upon blotting- paper, in the margin of a copy-book, or on the desk.1 5. Vocation. We should be mistaken in assuming that the choice of a profession is invariably or exclusively connected with the love need. Nevertheless, the love need is in many cases the chief factor in this choice. Many children want to be like father or mother when choosing an occupation-or else they are guided by contrast, by the wish to be as unlike father and mother as possible. A child may be influenced by parental desires and counsel, or may feel impelled in the opposite direction. In some cases, the child is influenced by a parent-substitute. In many instances, other impres- sions of childhood exercise an enduring influence. A little boy who was not yet of school age was shown some Bengal fire in a chemical laboratory. Up to the age of eighteen he had a fixed determination to become a chemist, and the intent was only weakened at length by his being on bad terms with a teacher of chemistry. In one of my subjects there could be no doubt that the design to become a doctor was referable to an improper doctor-and-patient game in the earliest years of life. A subject whose acquaintance we have already made (pp. 177 et seq.) became a merchant because from early youth he suffered from anxiety when he was watched, and because he hoped that in a foreign land he would be able, without restraint, to indulge his inspectionist impulse, which had been sexually tinged from the first. The sufferer from obsessional neurosis (supra pp. 195 and 226) who had an irresistible impulse when his sister was present to throw the table furniture up into the air, became a naturalist. He was especially interested in unicellular plants from the time when he had heard something about spermatozoa. We have just been reading the case of the mentally disordered girl who had a passionate longing to go on the stage, that she might 1 Cf. Zulliger, op. cit., pp. 106 et seq. 232 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS have an opportunity there of playing to its close the family drama which she could not play out in actual life. Normally, the occupation is a very accommodating carrier of love. When a young man vacillates incessantly in the choice of a career, an unsolved love problem is a com- mon determinative factor. The person thus affected is irresolute in his attitude towards father or mother, towards the giving or withholding of love. A boy whose case will be more fully described later, who loved his father con- sciously but hated him unconsciously, attempted one after another all the favourite occupations of his father. He began with art because his father had preferred this vocation to any other, but had been hindered by circumstances. When his neurosis became too much for him, he came to the conclusion that the conflict was the outcome of his false choice of a profession, and expected to find a cure in study, and then in technical discoveries. He diligently endeavoured to solve the problems over which his father had vainly puzzled, but this loyal and gifted son could make no better headway. Finally, he found his way into the occupation of his father. It was distasteful to him, but he knew how to overcome some of its disagreeables with the aid of occa- sional neurotic attacks and consequent recuperative holidays. 6. Social, Ethical, and Political Standpoint. R is obvious that a normally directed love will also con- tribute to the advantage of society. From a certain stage of development onwards, the unspoiled human being willingly serves the community, and devotes to such social activity a considerable proportion of his vital impetus. In conse- quence of social custom and of the higher moral standard he accommodates himself to the social organism, though he may blunder in the process. Development of love is therefore also development of the person toward social activity and social feeling. One must not, however, set the standard too high for the average human being. If the development of love be hindered in any way, love of humanity may be forced into devious paths or may even turn to hatred of mankind. This fact has been touched upon in Chapter x. But I must briefly refer to the attitude towards social and moral demands on the individual. LIKE AND DISLIKE 233 Since in the sequel I shall deal exhaustively with the development of the love of humanity and the love of God, and since I referred on p. 211 to sundry asocial types (grumblers, naggers, eccentrics, etc.), I can confine myself to a few examples. An exceptionally strong love of money is often the result of education, but it is likewise often the effect of a vigorous repression of love and is a symbol of a feeling of inferiority. This avariciousness is often noticeable in children who suffer from a lack of affection and from a consciousness of their own insignificance. Money becomes a substitute for love. The love of money is often obsessional. Thus the more or less pathological misers and money-lovers come into being. In contrast with this we find that those who have had love showered upon them are prone to be spendthrifts. 7. Cases. (a) Kleptomania due to repressed Hatred and repressed Love.1 During the holidays a girl of 14 or 15 years old who had been brought up in the Protestant faith paid frequent visits to a Roman Catholic school. One day while she was alone in the room the girl suddenly felt an irresistible impulse to steal the money out of the poor-box which stood near a statue of the Virgin who was praying for alms. At home she had plenty of opportunities for stealing money but had not any wish to do so. She took the poor-box in her hand and noticed that there could only be a very small amount inside. Alarmed at her action, the girl ran into the garden. But she could find no rest there ; she had to return to the room. Once more she fled into the open. On returning for the third time into the room her resistance gave way. She abstracted the whole content of the box (which amounted to about one franc in all) and bought chocolate with the money. Seized with intense anxiety and with the energy of despair she threw her purchase into a brook. She never had another access of kleptomania ; but later there de- veloped (as I have noticed in other cases of the sort) a very 1 This case and the following one are taken from my work Die Behandlung schwer erziehbarer und abnormer Kinder, pp. 65 et seq. 234 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS serious neurosis in which the same power which had prompted towards theft now gave rise to other morbid symptoms and destroyed the happiness of the subject. When this girl grew up she endeavoured on several occasions (when she was 18, 20, and 24 years of age) to replace the small sum of her theft back in the poor-box. She was not able to do so until she had been analysed. Now what sort of unconscious imps are these that impel a person to steal ? In the case of this girl the love life had become stagnant. She was being brought up over-rigorously by her mother. Neither bodily nor mental inferiority were present. But the desire for love and for freedom found no outlet. And yet the girl ardently yearned for both. In her visits to the superior of the convent, for the first time in her life she encountered love and understanding ; her own love flowed freely towards the sympathetic nun. But a great difficulty arose. Before the child went to the school, her mother had forbidden her to become more intimate with this nun. The elder daughter had previously become a Catholic, and had taken the veil. For this reason, the mother now told her younger girl: "If you let yourself be snared by this Catholic woman, we shall have nothing more to do with you, and you will be homeless ! " In the child's mind there was a conflict between her yearning to love the nun and her dread of her mother ; there was an additional conflict between the desire to revolt against her mother's tyranny and the pressure of the commandment, " Honour thy father and thy mother.'' At first she told the nun that she had really been baptised a Catholic like her father, and naturally the nun found this an agreeable topic of conversation. But soon in the child's mind the terror of her mother came to predominate, and the access of klepto- mania followed. As in similar cases of theft when the offence is committed under an obscure impulse, the child did not really want the money, for there had been plenty of opportunities of stealing a hundred times as much ; nor was any use made of the spoil, seeing that the chocolate bought with it was thrown away. For the little thief, the money in the poor-box was a symbol of something precious, the love of the nun who was the guardian of the money ; but the theft was likewise LIKE AND DISLIKE 235 an expression of the spirit of revolt, of the desire to dis- obey the mother. The little girl was afraid to seek the nun's affection openly, and she therefore grasped at a symbolical substitute. Again and again, in such compulsions, the act is a compromise. Here the mother's command was obeyed in the letter, inasmuch as the child did not woo the nun's favour ; but the desire for revolt and the longing to engage the nun's affections broke through, seeing that, symboli- cally at least, the child seized the forbidden fruit. These considerations throw light on the emotional ardour which preceded the theft, an ardour which is inexplicable when we simply consider the value of the spoil. We are also enabled to understand the profound disillusionment that followed the offence. (&) Kleptomania due to repressed and imperfectly mastered Masturbation In the drawer of a boy of sixteen, who was usually well- behaved, were found the following articles : some numbers of an obscene periodical, a secretly procured pair of bathing drawers, and a piece of soap. These articles had been pur- chased with stolen money. Full of shame, he confessed to his parents that during the past four years he had repeatedly stolen money in order to buy sweets. He had also stolen sweets from about twelve different shops. He had allowed one of the servants to be discharged for theft when he had himself really been the offender. Yet this lad had no par- ticular fondness for dainties, and but rarely availed himself of manifold opportunities for pilfering them. The trouble began at the age of puberty. The sweets were a symbolical substitute for sexual pleasure. This solves the enigma. It explains why none but stolen dainties could charm him, for they were symbols of another forbidden pleasure. It explains, too, the purchase of soap, a cleanser : we think of the washing mania of Lady Macbeth, who wished to cleanse herself of the king's blood ; and we think of Pilate. The significance of the bathing drawers also becomes ap- parent ; they were to clothe the boy's nakedness. He already had bathing drawers, and as much soap as he wanted. But for the atonement of his offence-a peculiar and typically neurotic offence-he must procure these articles for himself, 236 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS and must buy them with stolen money. The bathing drawers and the soap give symbolical expression to the need for a moral cleansing; just like the obsession of Lady Macbeth, who was incessantly washing her hands. The possession of pornographic literature is in harmony with this explanation. The boy got no help from his frequent attendance at penitential and revivalist meetings. These served merely to strengthen the conviction : "I am lost; I am a moral outcast. An additional theft or two can add nothing to the burden of my sins." Quite a number of antisocial and immoral actions and moods can be interpreted in like manner. Many a young profligate has gone to the bad simply in order to spite his father or to extort sympathy from his mother. How many youthful bars, slanderers, tormentors of animals, bullies, tricksters, etc., have been forced into evil and even criminal courses, merely because their affections could not find vent in normal channels ? And even when the conscious has compounded with meanness, a study of the depths will disclose that in many instances, perhaps only just below the threshold of consciousness, there is a vigorous impulse towards moral freedom and genuine love. Far more often than is usually imagined, crime is but the illegitimate child of unhappy love. In addition to an unsatisfactory relation- ship towards the parents, directly sexual motives are in most cases contributory. When the criminal tendency is associated with mis- anthropy, misogyny, or hatred for all mankind, the causal factors are usually of this nature. The misanthrope is a victim of false generalisation, for he has regarded his own immediate associates as typical of the whole human race. In this respect we resemble the snail, which carries its house with it wherever it goes. We are apt to carry with us, unseen, our parental habitation, and the burden is often a heavy one. This theory is confirmed by a study of people's political outlooks. When love is repressed, the cooperation of certain additional determinants may arouse a craving for the exer- cise of political dominance. A yearning for the father made of young Bismarck a zealous monarchist. Hostility to his beuniformed father turned Bebel into a social LIKE AND DISLIKE 237 democrat. I analysed one of two brothers. Since early childhood he had been an enthusiastic republican, this political trend being the outcome of hostility to the father, a narrow- minded pedant. The other brother, who was more akin to the father, adopted the latter's political views. The radical- minded brother came to grief in the attempt to follow his father's profession as teacher, which he had adopted in the hope of outshining his father. Realising his inability to do so in this particular field, he now adopted a journalistic career, hoping that as a publicist he would exercise more influence than his rival. We have previously considered the case of a rabid anar- chist and enemy of society (pp. 152 et seq.). IV. The Love of the Child for Itself CHAPTER THIRTEEN SELF-AFFIRMATION AND SELF-NEGATION i. Self-Affirmation. (<z) The Child's Love for its own Body {Narcissism). Delight in one's own body plays a larger part in the development of love than was suspected prior to the use of the psychoanalytical method. It has, however, always been recognised that children are proud of their growth, and enjoy watching and measuring it. People knew that both boys and girls were fond of admiring themselves in the mirror. Not until quite recently, however, has any serious attention been paid to the aberrations of this love for one's own body, the so-called narcissism. Its study has shown that the direction of sexual desire, the inspectionist trend, and many morbid fixations and other abnormalities of the sexual life, are codetermined. • A little boy from two to three years old had been photo- graphed, and the photograph had been coloured. One day the youngster overheard one of his aunts exclaim : " What a wonderfully pretty child ! " The little boy was subse- quently found standing in front of his portrait murmuring to himself again and again : " Hans 'onderfly plitty ! " Of course he was scolded for his vanity, but an excessive self-esteem soon became apparent. He was always demand- ing admiration. Whereas his parents and his brothers and sisters were both loving and lovable, this boy made a formal cult of his own ego, caring for others only in so far as they served his own ends. Above all he was dominated by the need to shine. The associated feeling of poverty of spirit was simultaneously narcotised and stimulated, during the 238 SELF-AFFIRMATION AND SELF-NEGATION 239 later years at the secondary school, by an alcoholic tendency. The youth was highly gifted, but his social ineptitude led to continued exploitation of his nearest relatives. His letters contained little beyond descriptions of anticipated fame and wealth. Thanks to the indulgence of the family, he was able to spend his days in a dull twilight of narcissistic self- admiration, which was in arduous conflict with a distressing sense of inferiority that became morbidly exacerbated after bouts of alcoholic excess. He married for money, and was thus provided with resources enabling him to continue this spurious existence. In course of time, the financial re- sources began to dwindle, and his wife, sobered by her ex- periences, restricted the supplies. By this time the spoiled child had become a man of fifty and at length found himself able to stand upon his own feet, although hitherto by threats of suicide he had continually extorted money from his relatives. He now easily secured for himself a lucrative position, but the narcissistic constellation persisted. He found it impossible to forgive the failure to pay adequate tribute to the glories of his personality, and he insisted upon a separation from the wife who had supplied his every need. From this case alone it would be impossible to decide whether the narcissism of the child contributed to the de- velopment of the full-grown egoist. Innumerable observa- tions, have, however, shown that such a connexion does undoubtedly exist, though naturally other factors contribute. Conscious narcissism may undergo various transformations. It may be entirely repressed, so that the body is neglected ; but, in compensation for this, incense may be offered to some spiritual or moral quality ; some particular talent may be fanatically cultivated in the interests of self-esteem, and rivals in the field may be regarded with venomous hatred. A striking point is that the narcissist who despises his fellows nevertheless craves in most cases for their admiration. Still there are many consistent narcissists, who are quite indifferent to the opinions of others. In my essay Das Kinderspiel als Fruhsymptom krank- hafter Entwicklung,1 I have recorded the most conspicuous case of narcissism analysed by myself. It was that of a boy * See note on p. 220. 240 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS who was noteworthy at school on account of his dislike to bathing with his schoolfellows. And yet, after a solitary bathe, he loved to lie about naked, giving himself up to nar- cissistic pleasure, even to the pitch of a voluptuous orgasm ; and while swimming, he experienced intense sexual excite- ment. This occasioned a crushing sense of self-reproach, which distressed him for many years. Other factors were also at work, but these must be left unconsidered, since the present study does not aim at completeness, being concerned merely with predominant influences. I must mention, however, that in his home life the boy found no satisfying love, and had no playmates. His existence was loveless, sustained only by a Kantian sense of duty, which was usually more or less overshadowed by a feeling of despair. His narcissism had been encouraged by various sexual experiences of the first years of life, among which was an invitation to strip made to him by a lustful maid. We should note that it is exceptional for a physical ex- cellence to be the starting-point of narcissism as in Oscar Wilde's brilliant story, The Picture of Dorian Gray. More often, this affect depends upon physical blemish. The distressing sense of inferiority is repressed from conscious- ness, but from the realm of the unconscious it continues to dominate the life. Wishing to compensate for the defect, the subject devotes all his energies to this unconscious pur- pose, greatly overestimating the blemish, and making undue sacrifices in order to overcome it. For those gravely affected with narcissism, the achieve- ment of a normal love for their fellows is difficult. They inflate the ego to such an extent that nothing is left over for the tu. Not only do they become vain and foppish, but often extremely selfish, unloving and unlovable, and this makes them very unhappy. Building a wall round them- selves, they lead prisoned lives within it. Existence loses its splendour and its significance. A number of morbid symptoms ensue. If a child's love and other vital activities are gravely restricted, an undue amount of energy may be devoted to muscular work. Pleasure in sport, which is for the townsman a normal counterpoise to the sedentariness of his life, may SELF-AFFIRMATION AND SELF-NEGATION 241 at times become excessive, may grow to a passion which absorbs an overplus of energy, thus threatening the harmo- nious development of the personality. There are fanatics of physical culture and ardent devotees of sport who endeavour to find compensation in these activities for the lack of parental love and the failure to form friendships ; they are seeking also to be freed from the spell of lower impulses. Devotion to sport is often a variety of narcissism. I am hardly transcending the proper limits of this work in alluding to the case of a young airman who used to soar through the sky in a state of passionate excitement, of divine ecstasy. True love was unknown to him. Such coarse excesses as he had experienced had never brought him genuine satisfaction, and had left a feeling of disgust. He continually suffered from anxiety, but was instantly freed from his distresses as soon as he started forth upon his air- plane. When danger threatened, he would remain perfectly calm-to fall a prey to anxiety once more immediately after his return to solid earth. Apart from moonlit nights spent in solitude among the high mountains, he never tasted ecstasy except when soaring in his flying machine. A young man of my acquaintance sought refuge from a spiritual conflict in mountaineering. He was afflicted with a sense of inferiority, and this drove him into daredevil exploits which aroused great admiration, though they were blamed by many on account of their preposterous rashness. But in this case, likewise, there were additional factors at work. Apart from the pleasure in muscular exertion, there was a love of wild nature ; there was ambition, there was the delight in making people's flesh creep, and there was the joy in being at grips with death. Another young man, whose most intimate friend had recently poisoned himself, undertook a crazily dangerous climb when a storm was threatening. Eventually a rescue party dug him out of the snow, more dead than alive, and carried him to the hospital which he left permanently crippled. In this instance, narcissism played its part only in the selec- tion of the particular form of suicidal enterprise, for the leading design was the search for death during a bold athletic exploit. Narcissism may take a sensory as well as a motor form. 242 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS Badly nourished children, and children with few pleasures, are apt to display a very sweet tooth ; and when they grow up this is often transformed into a craving for alcohol. These pleasures of the senses are to provide substitutes for the lack of other joys. But we must not unduly simplify the pro- blem of alcoholism. The desire to drown affliction and to escape into a world of dreams plays a notable part. Inas- much as drink, when its influence is pushed, loosens and ultimately severs the tie between the drinker and his fellows, it intensifies egoism. The drinker enjoys megalomaniac fantasies-continues to enjoy them until reality at length forces itself upon his attention with the onset of physical and moral decay. Tobacco smoking, likewise, is often a form of self-idolisa- tion, a substitute for the scarcity of other pleasures. In one instance, where smoking had become a positive obses- sion, it was a reaction from repressed masturbation. Un- fortunately the subject gave me but one psychoanalytical sitting, and it was not possible to ascertain the precise determinants. (i) The Child's Love for its own Mind. Should the self-idolisation fail in one direction, it may seek vent in another. One who is suffering from physical disability may look for consolation in the mental sphere. Perhaps the delight in the dear self may be confirmed and intensified by the display of special ability in school life, or by cunning, or by the acquisition of wealth, or by a talent to domineer. In apparently model scholars, in successful money-makers, acquisitive persons, ambitious folk, bullies and blusterers, oppressors, and the like, narcissism is often secretly at work ; even piety is frequently misapplied in order to enthrone the ego. I knew a boy who was a con- firmed liar. Suddenly he began to play the saint. As a pupil in the higher school he taught in Sunday school; gave revivalist addresses in the Salvation Army headquarters; acted as private tutor in order with his earnings to buy stockings for poor children ; invited his classmates to join with him in slumming excursions, that they might receive social shocks. Already at this stage the vanity of the young pietist was unbounded. Whenever he was preaching, he SELF-AFFIRMATION AND SELF-NEGATION 243 attached great importance to the sale of picture postcards bearing his portrait. The contemplation of his own image in the looking-glass and in photographs became a cult with him, pursued at times with hypochondriacal anxiety and at times with ridiculous conceit, until it became a hysterical obsession. At the age of nineteen, he had become a dan- gerous Don Juan. By twenty-two, he had been officially betrothed no less than fourteen times, and had brought disaster to countless girls ; he was a cheat, who had wasted large sums of his father's money and had lured cash from the pockets of a number of poor devils ; a hypocrite, who would entice unsuspicious girls by preaching the most edifying sermons, and immediately after the service would succeed in seducing his victims. But behind all these performances was masked, in addition to sexual hyperexcitability, a power- fully developed impulse to display his own power. Many boys are definitely in love with their own thought. Attaching excessive importance to it, they piously treasure up every scrap of paper containing a thought of theirs, pre- serving it for the sake of posterity, or at least as a memorial of their intellectual development which may be utilised by some possible biographer. They account to themselves for the scant respect paid by others to these products of their intelligence by recalling that genius has ever been misunder- stood. Yet all this self-love is merely a fruit of inhibition of the love for mankind. Girls are frequently in love with their own feelings, to which they attach immoderate importance. They are especially vain of their artistic sensibilities, their keen appreciation of the beauties of nature, the profundity of their love (which is such as no one ever felt before), their religious fervour. The same ludicrous vanity is encountered in the sphere of the religious sentiment, and sometimes in men as well as women. We see it, for example, in theologians who might have been expected to have better taste. Finally I may refer to those who are in love with their own will. We may often note that people who strenuously pursue some aim and imagine they are seeking it for its own sake, are in reality concerned only to demonstrate their fixity of purpose and strength of will. This accounts for a great deal of foolish obstinacy, for the crazy manner in which 244 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS persons will cling to some valueless or absurd undertaking. They would regard any rectification of aim as an admission of defeat, a sign of infirmity of purpose-and this would hurt their self-love. 2. Self-Negation and Self-Depreciation. An inordinate restriction of love to love of oneself may be due to aberration. It is all the more necessary to draw attention to this fact seeing such a restriction is often pre- scribed in the name of what is alleged to be a lofty moral code. By " self-renunciation " is frequently understood the complete refusal to grant the most natural desires of the ego; the denial of every sort of pleasure which is not religiously tinted, a denial which amounts at times to self- mutilation and constant self-martyrdom. Incidentally let me point out that this anti-ego constellation is contrary to the commandments and outlooks of Jesus and of true Christianity. Jesus was not an ascetic and did not demand asceticism. His injunction was that we should love God with our whole heart, and our neighbour as ourselves (see above p. 38) ; and he was called a man gluttonous and a wine-bibber in comparison with John the Baptist (Matthew xi, 19). In the present work, based as it is on observation, I wish to emphasise with the utmost energy how disastrous are the effects of the repression of self-love into the unconscious, instead of the cultivation of control over the love of self. We have met with the former in the girl whose case was reported on pp. 121 et seq. Here, in spite of excellent mental and physical qualities and a good social position, the girl's inner life was desolate and she had fallen a prey to the deepest depression. She had repressed all her primary feelings. She dressed with nunlike simplicity ; although the mother her- self wore, and recommended to her daughter, dresses suitable to her social position and agreeable to a cultured taste. Of her own accord she allowed herself no pleasures, and had to be persuaded and coaxed into permitting herself to enjoy the most innocent amusement. She treated herself as if she were a horse that not only deserved abundant beating, but was not entitled to enjoy the smallest of open fields or the tiniest morsel of sugar. Being unable to fulfil to her satisfaction her strong religious and moral impulses, she fell SELF-AFFIRMATION AND SELF-NEGATION 245 a prey to a sentiment of unworthiness which caused her to feel that any yielding to pleasure was undeserved, presump- tuous, and frivolous. Underlying such self-deprivation are often feelings of guilt which are apt to be quite unjustifiable. Here we have to do with unconscious sins, with sudden promptings to forbidden wishes which have instantaneously been sup- pressed but which rankle in the unconscious, and with childish desires which have long since become obsolete. The consciousness is charged with a misdemeanour of which it has no knowledge ; or at any rate the emotional distress aroused by the supposed offence is altogether dispropor- tionate, and serves merely to hamper the moral energies. We have noted such an instance of self-inflicted punish- ment for criminal wishes in the unconscious in the case of the lady who tormented herself and her associates with hygienic measures (supra pp. 128 et seq.). She was the very embodiment of unselfishness ; and were it virtuous to de- prive oneself of all pleasures which are purely self-regarding, she deserved the name of saint. But her rejection of self- regarding joys was but the obverse of an incapacity for enjoyment, an incapacity which she decked with the mantle of unselfishness. If her husband wished her to accompany him on a journey, she refused the invitation. She left for others the foods for which she had a liking. During the holidays, her only pleasure was to sacrifice herself for her associates. Thus refusing to her ego any right to the pleasures of life, she directed all her vital impetus into her obsessional symptoms, and was not restored to health until she came to recognise the justification for a healthy self-love quite dis- tinct from selfishness. In many instances, self-denial is no more than a mask for the love of dominion. Children who renounce all pleasures in a way that seems perfectly unselfish are not infrequently on the look-out for praise, are endeavouring to extort tenderness, to secure relief from work, to tyrannise over their associates, and so on. When the lower animal impulses are controlled or par- tially repressed, the mental personality may impose itself all the more strongly. I have known many children who regarded themselves as " nervous," were affected with 246 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS hypochondria, and suffered from a sense of physical inferi- ority, but gave ample expression to the will-to-power. Among young persons of both sexes, the ringleaders, and the tyrants of school classes, are often persons suffering from physical defects or abnormalities. Richard III and his innumerable fellow-sufferers serve to remind us that those affected with bodily disadvantages are apt to seek compensation in the display of malice and cruelty. Such manifestations of evil moral qualities are especially frequent in deaf-mutes. It is well known that in many ascetics the atrophy of self-love may lead, not only to grave neurotic disorders, but also to horrible and conspicuous defects of character. Heresy hunters and witch burners have often been persons who would make no concessions to the lower nature of man, and who refrained from all conscious indulgence in pleasure. By way of compensation, in the name of piety they gave free vent to their delight in torture, to their sadistic impulses. When the primitive passions are completely extirpated so that, for instance, sexuality is entirely repressed, the result is often the production of a living corpse. But this term is not wholly applicable. It should denote a condition in which nothing arouses pleasure and interest-neither love, nor friendship, nor ambition, nor power, nor religion. But there still persists a longing for spiritual goods, and intense suffering on account of failures in the spiritual sense.1 A common form of self-denial is self-depreciation. It sometimes leads to the feeling of utter worthlessness ; to the obstinate conviction of being inferior to all others, or to certain others whom one feels one ought to equal; some- times to a painful sense, which may or may not be justified, that others regard one as inferior or as utterly useless. All these forms of self-depreciation are apt to be lumped together as a sense of inferiority, but this leads to confusion, and it is desirable to draw the following distinctions : 1. A sense of being of little worth-such as is apt to arise in those with bodily defects, and in those who feel a lack of social, intellectual, or artistic talent. Where the self-condem- 1 Cf. my essay : Die primSren Gefiihle als Bedingungen der hdchsten Geistesfunktionen, " Imago." 1922, SELF-AFFIRMATION AND SELF-NEGATION 247 nation is operative in the moral sphere, a sense of unworthi- ness arises. 2. A sense of inferiority-in comparison with other human beings. 3. A sense of being despised-a feeling that others take a low estimate of us. In some cases this estimate may be considered just; in others it may be resented. There are a great many persons belonging to each of these groups, the boundaries between which cannot always be sharply defined. In the case of the members of every one of the groups, there may or may not be justification for the feelings in question. The affective tone varies greatly in different cases, ranging from exasperation to a pleasurable longing for revenge, to shame, anxiety, dull despair, tranquil renunciation, indifference, or a sardonic mood. The results will vary correspondingly. A few observations upon these diverse constellations of self-love may be useful. In a number of excessively shy but very charming girls I have met with a strong sense of inferiority as regards their looks. In these cases the parents had been sedulous from the earliest years of childhood to utter warnings against vanity, and in their excess of zeal had aroused in the girl's mind the conviction that she was hideous. But such an opinion regarding one's personal appearance becomes a torment only when tenderness and kindliness have been lacking in the educational environment. I have known persons with grave physical defects, persons who have been crippled from childhood onwards, without being afflicted in any way by a sense of inferiority. Consequently, I cannot accept Adler's view that a sense of inferiority is always refer- able to bodily defects. When the demand for parental love is satisfied, even grave bodily defects are tranquilly endured. Xs regards the intensity of the feelings aroused by drawbacks of all kinds, the love relationships are decisive-the extent to which love is received and given. Children often suffer from the impression that they are not like others. Beyond question, the idea of being thus set apart can only lead to serious trouble in those whose normal demands for love are ungratified. Then only will arise the anxiety that is apt to accompany a sense of being set apart. A sense of inferiority implies a comparison, a feeling 248 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS that one is less well equipped than certain others, especially one's near kin, or persons closely related to oneself by age or other circumstances ; or the comparison may be made with people in general. A boy who compares himself with persons of exceptional talent (be it father, brothers and sisters, or playmates) will suffer more than one who is only comparing himself with average persons. Even when the comparison is obviously unfavourable to the subject, the edge will be taken off the sense of inferiority for those who love sentiment can run in normal channels. A sense of being despised is especially dangerous because of its tendency to promote egoism. It arises only in cases where there are hindrances to the outward flow of the affec- tions. Where genuine love for others is felt, this sense of being despised is not likely to arise ; and even if the subject does actually suffer because a low estimate of his capacities is held, he will not take the matter much to heart. But when the proper affectionate relationships to our neighbours is hampered, we shall very readily conceive the idea that our neighbours despise us, for we shall project into others the thoughts that we ourselves are harbouring, and shall thus be punished for our own depreciation of others. Those who expect disagreeable things of others are apt to make them- selves disagreeable to others, who will then behave in such a way as to justify the sense of being despised. Thus the worm bores ever more deeply into the heart. The ego under- goes inflation in proportion as the love for the tu dwindles. An excessive self-esteem, which may increase to megalomania, offers itself as substitute for the failure of others to respect us and to love us. Such an inflation of the ego, if it leads only to fantasies and not to an invigoration of activity, cannot fail at long last to culminate in the bursting of the bubble. But the feeling that they are despised by others leads quite a number of children and young persons to display enhanced energy in the struggles of life. A strong sense of inferiority will also arise when a child is given no scope for free activity, or when the developmental urge is obstructed in some other way. In many instances, the sense of restriction is repressed, and gives place to arrogance. Marked arrogance is almost always a mask for a sense of inferiority. SELF-AFFIRMATION AND SELF-NEGATION 249 3. Dissociation for the Benefit of Self-Love. A child discovers in itself unamiable traits as well as amiable ones, and the unamiable characteristics seem es- pecially conspicuous in the moral sphere. When the con- science is tender, the child may find it impossible to preserve any vestiges of self-respect. Out of the tension thus arising, an issue is sought in various complicated ways-attempts to provide adequate scope for the self-love which we have seen to be biologically indispensable. One such expedient will be described when we come to consider the religious conscious- ness of grace and salvation. Another expedient is that of religious fanaticism (cf. Saul's persecution of the Christians).1 A third expedient is that of symbolical penances, sacrifices, etc. Again, an attempt may be made to rehabilitate the ego by the display of an increased love of one's neighbour. For the nonce let us confine ourselves to the examination of yet another expedient, in which there is complete con- centration upon the ego. The personality undergoes dissocia- tion into a higher self and a lower, one of which by turns is regarded as the genuine ego, whilst the other is looked upon as an alien personality, or as a double. To the best of my knowledge, Ernst Schneider was the first to describe the splitting off of the lower impulses to form a personality alien to the ego? A little boy named Max, on being scolded for his naughtiness, explained to his mother : " I didn't do it. The Moritz in me did it." He meant, the naughty tendency within him. Another boy (I analysed his case after he had grown to manhood) constructed for himself a double in heaven. At the time of the analysis, the subject was thirty years of age. Unfortunately, the number of sittings was greatly restricted. Already before he was fifteen, he became inspired with a vigorous impulse towards purity and goodness. I sum- marise what I learned from him about the double. [The double.] He came into my fancy when I was stand- ing near a spring. The spring was between two houses, a large one and a small one. We lived in one of them. In 1 Consult my essay : Die Entwicklung des Apostels Paulus, " Imago,' vol. vi, 1920, No. 3. » Schneider, Das Stottern (unpublished). 250 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS the other, there was a dear old man, extremely pious, and greatly respected by every one. When he died, we wanted to sing him a funeral song. Close by, there were some tall poplars in which thievish starlings lived. People used to shoot at them, but they always came back again. Near the spring I fell from a cart and hurt myself badly. I still have the scar. It was a mineral spring. As it was at first, the water was often muddy, so they made a new pebble bed for it. I should have liked to go and look into it, but was not allowed to climb down there. Now it comes into my mind that I also used to think about my double on the way to school. [The way to school.] There were crab-apples growing along the road. We often used to wonder whether we might take them. One of my schoolfellows had an elder brother whom I thought a great deal of. One day he said there was no reason why we should not take the apples, so we ate some. But then my friend and I went to Sunday school, and our consciences were troubled about what we had done. I had a feeling that it was splendid that my double did everything just when I was doing it. Or I would ask myself: " Does he do it first ? Do I simply imitate him ? " [The double.] I thought he lived on a star where it is lovelier than here. Or perhaps the stars were in heaven. I fancied that my double must be bigger and stronger than myself ; I did not think him better than myself. When I raised my hand, it seemed to me that he must be doing the same thing. Sometimes I thought that he must be de- pendent upon me, and sometimes that I was dependent upon him. I was not quite twelve years old then, and still wore boy's clothes, but my friend, whose people were not so well off as mine, was already dressed like a grown man. This used to annoy me rather. I can still remember quite clearly the direction in which it seemed to me that my double was situated. He was on my left, along a line slanting upwards at an angle of about 45°. That was the direction in which I often saw the moon where there was the man whose face had so much delighted me in childhood. His expression was kindly ; I loved the man in the moon. SELF-AFFIRMATION AND SELF-NEGATION 251 No one had ever told me anything about doubles, but I had been told that people went to heaven when they died. The problems of sexual enlightenment and of sex life in general were much in my thoughts at this time. It was, unfortunately, impossible to obtain ahy more associations. How are we to interpret such material as is available ? Those only who have a considerable experience in the technique of the study of associations can draw trust- worthy conclusions, and such persons only are entitled to pass judgment upon the following interpretation. I cannot help it if the inexperienced ridicule my deductions instead of examining them with judicious criticism. The places with which the play of imagination is con- nected are important. Let us consider them first in their bearing on recorded facts. The spring reminds the subject of a dangerous fall; of thievish starlings which could not be scared away by gunshots ; and of the spring shaft filled with dirty water, the shaft down which the boy would have liked to climb, but he had been forbidden to bo so. We are also told in this connexion of a venerable old man who has died. The second place with which the fantasy of the double is connected calls up the memory of a moral danger in which a playfellow shared, and the thought of conscientious scruples. The direction in which the enigmatic figure of the double was supposed to have its habitation arouses the thought of the friendly personality of the man in the moon. The venerable elder, who has gone to heaven, may be sup- posed to play a quasi-divine role. Unfortunately, no details are given regarding his personality. The thievish birds must unquestionably relate to moral lapses, or at any rate to temptations which, though frequently resisted, continually return. The spring with turbid water, down to which the boy wishes to climb, but which he is forbidden to inspect at close quarters, represents an immoral temptation. Whilst the spring and its surroundings are thus related to the sexual risks which were urgent at this time, the other locality with which the fantasy of the double is associated connects with temptations to offences against property. What is the meaning of this remarkable idea, which had so much moral significance for the lad ? Why does he undergo dissociation into two distinct but mutually depen- 252 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS dent personalities ? Manifestly he was in search of a moral defence against the dangers that were threatening him. Part of his personality lived in heaven or upon a star. Was not this an embodiment of the higher dignity of human nature, of its heavenly side ? Did not this loftier personality live under the eyes of God, the all-good, the ever-venerable ? The thought of the connexion with heaven was certainly calculated to deprive temptation of its force, and to promote moral fervour by sustaining it with a religiously tinged emotion. In another case, whose examination was also incomplete, a little girl from the sixth to the eighth year of life was living always under the eyes of an imaginary grown-up girl to whom she had given the name of Minna Taube. This spectral being was extraordinarily beautiful, and had the dark locks which the little day-dreamer would herself have liked to have. We may speak of her as a fairy, for she lived sometimes in the forest and sometimes in the water, where she could be visited by journeying in an underground ship. While playing with a girl friend, our subject would sometimes stop the game, stand quite still, and tell her companion experiences from the realm of fable. She was extremely neurotic, and had suffered from anxiety since earliest childhood. She used to besiege her mother with questions whether one of her eyes was not larger than the other ; and at first she would put the same enquiry to her teacher. She would frequently ask whether she was not too " haar," but she could not explain what she meant or was hinting at by this remarkable word of her own coining. The difficulties in the way of an adequate analysis were insuperable, and I was therefore unable to ascertain whether Minna Taube represented the subject's double, or was perhaps an impersonation and idealisation of the mother, or the outcome of a psychological process of some other kind. There may occur transient dissociations of personality without any moral discrimination between the two person- alities. One of my subjects, who was somewhat beyond the age limit fixed for the cases to be considered in this book, had the following experience. She suffered from an intense feeling of inferiority, and had been brought up by a gloomy SELF-AFFIRMATION AND SELF-NEGATION 253 and strict father. One day, quite unexpectedly, she was called upon to give a lecture to a large audience. The attempt to escape the ordeal was fruitless. Her unconscious came to her aid in a remarkable manner. When the moment arrived in which she was called upon to speak, she suddenly " heard " a silence. Then she heard herself speaking with great fluency. She followed the speech with keen interest, asking herself all the time how much longer it would go on. The doubling of the personality into a speaking individual, acting quite automatically, and as far as experience went dissociated from the ego (although, of course, logically it belonged to the ego), and the real conscious personality which listened to the performances of the other, continued until near the close of the lecture. Then ensued a fusion of the two personalities, and immediately the lecturer began to stammer a little. With amazing adroitness, the uncongenial task of public speaking is here transferred to a double. But whereas in the case of the little boy (supra p. 169) who believed himself to have been saved from a perilous situation by guardian angels, there was a complete lapse of consciousness, in this instance the consciousness of self remained supreme. Real dissociation, in which a heavenly double is split off from the normal consciousness, must not be confused with another form of dissociation described by Freud-a process of notable importance both for the enhancement of self-love and for the cultivation of the moral personality. This is the construction of an ideal ego, by whose standard the real ego is measured.1 Therewith the child, which has been devoted to the admiration of its own body, loses interest in this, and proceeds to make higher moral demands upon itself. It desires to act purely and vigorously, in conformity with the prescriptions of the moral law. But the loftier the stan- dards of this ideal ego (we might reverse the terms, and say, this ego-ideal) the more vigorous is the rejection of immoral leanings-and the greater the risk of repression. 1 Freud, Zur Einfiihrung des Narzissmus, Kleine Schriften zur Neurosen- lehre, iv, pp. ioi et seq. V. The Love of the Child for God and Divine Things CHAPTER FOURTEEN A DISCUSSION OF CASES 1. Cases previously reported. Though this section deals with a subject which is of immense importance in its repercussions on the life of the child, I do not intend to discuss the topic in detail, seeing that I propose to devote a special study to the religious life. The present work has, however, already furnished us with an occasional glimpse into various religious phenomena. Let me recall the most striking of these. A woman suffering from obsessional neurosis, who had an excessive affection for her father so that she may be said to have idolised him, felt that she had more religious energy if, while praying, she had her eyes fixed on her father (p. 130). A youth who was badly treated by his father had a ghostly visitation (p. 148). The anarchistic painter who hated his father had transferred this hatred to God, as well as to the State, society, and indeed all and sundry (p. 157). The Roman Catholic ritual exercised a magical charm upon the paedophiliac youth who had been brought up in an irreligious manner, who had suffered much at the hands of his drunken father and a little, too, at the hands of his mother, and whose sexual life was a distress to him (pp. 158 et seq.). Then we had the case of the little boy, six or seven years old, whose mother was a terror to him, and who believed that in answer to prayer guardian angels had carried him safely past the lair of a dread spectre (p. 168). A youth suffering from melan- cholia had, when five or six years old, mimicked the crucified Christ; as a young man he was freed from gloomy thoughts 254 A DISCUSSION OF CASES 255 as to the non-existence of the world by an intuition from the deity. We noted that his development had been greatly influenced by an abnormal relationship to the parents (pp. 186 et seq.). The girl whose case was recorded on p. 197, whose headaches were connected with a love aberration dependent upon a brother-fixation, left Zurich before the analysis was finished, but with her symptoms considerably relieved. When away from home, she passed under the influence of a very religious room-mate. Now her love yearning was passionately directed towards Christ, and for a time there was a danger that she would become indifferent to the demands of the moral life. Happily, however, she was able to resist temptation. Becoming a well-trained nurse, devoted to her occupation, and inspired with fervent piety, she led a most useful life. In a young woman of twenty affected with repressed hatred for her father and her brothers and sisters, we noted an irresistible impulse to laugh during moments of intense religious emotion (pp. 206 et seq.). The boy who detested his father and the chaplain, made blasphemous images of the saints. Hostile to religion, he built altars ; played the priest ; practised a primitive ritual while, under strong emotional stress, he stammered forth unmeaning syllables ; and in imagination he delighted to function as a bellringer in heaven (p. 221). The following case, which has already been referred to in another connexion, is instructive. A girl of sixteen suffers every evening from intense anxiety. Often she has a hal- lucinatory vision of a man who disappears behind her bed. She cannot describe him accurately, but thinks he is not one of her acquaintances. His eyes are exactly like those of a boy three years older than herself who had led her astray eight years earlier, and by whom (in conjunction with her brother and one of the latter's schoolfellows) she had often been sexually mishandled. Some of the traits of the hallucin- atory figure, especially the beard and the stature, belong to a man of forty whose acquaintance she made recently ; other traits are appropriate to her grandfather and to the analyst. The patient delights in masochistic and sadistic dreams. She dreams that her father, naked, chases her, also in a state 2. Additional Cases. 256 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS of nudity, round the table, whipping her. During the first weeks of the treatment, the analyst comes into her fantasies in manifold and somewhat perverted ways. During the last two years she has almost every night witnessed her parents engaged in sexual intercourse, her mother always offering violent resistance. When this happens, she is filled with anger against her father, and experiences an intense orgasm ; during the day time she voluntarily induces this orgasm. In her waking thought, condensations are frequent. Her father, her grandfather, her teacher, and the analyst, seem to her to have the eyes of the boy seducer-despite all the differences she herself points out in tint of skin, stature, and other circumstances. The reason is that, thanks to her unfortunate history, being looked at arouses in this girl strong sexual feelings. All the persons condensed into the hallucinatory figure coalesce to form a unified object of love. A detailed analysis would certainly have shown that many additional traits of the hallucinatory figure were really those of men who were objects of her sexual desire. But the case was far too grave to permit of the prolonged indulgence of psychological curiosity. Another condensation was that the patient had for years found it almost impossible to think of a man except with an erect penis. The image of the youthful seducer, those of certain exhibitionists she had seen, and that of her father, were condensed with those of all male persons. The only exception to this rule is the figure of Jesus. He alone among men does not present himself to her imagination as a sexual being. When, after a few months, the hallucinations and the anxiety simultaneously declined, their place was taken by religious fantasies which assumed a quasi-hallucinatory character The girl, who cannot endure the image of God, and prefers to pray to the Saviour, saw God in the air. His lineaments changed from hour to hour, or even during the sitting, so that for a time the analysis was mainly devoted to deciphering the characteristics of this hallucinatory figure, which contained such an abundance of condensed elements, and was extremely instructive to the student of religious psychology. A DISCUSSION OF CASES 257 At first God appeared as a human figure of almost gigantic size, six feet six inches or more, standing above a wood. His features were like those of an " old " man (he was fifty years of age), her cousin on the paternal side, a miser and a fanatical pietist whom she detests even more than most other men. He contributes the most sinister traits in the figure of the deity-the brown tint of the skin, the eyes, and especially the eyebrows. But the girl's mother also contributes her quota, the flaccid facial muscles in the hallucinatory image being derived from her. The beard is that of Father Christ- mas, and also that of old Pastor J. The eyebrows suggest those of a younger man, Pastor C. The nose is that of the analyst. Here is her explanation of this portraiture. God has always been described to the patient as " the father," and her associations with the idea of God are exclusively dis- agreeable. Lot's wife had simply turned round to look back, and he changed her into a pillar of salt. He sent a plague of locusts. Both these stories had made a profound impression on her mind. She herself, like Lot's wife, had turned round, against orders, that she might watch her parents. The pillar of salt was like the Iron Maiden in which men were put to death. This fantasy reflects the girl's elemental hatred for the male world. The plague of locusts reminds her how such insects have crept under her petticoats and clung to her legs, frightening her terribly. With full awareness, she regards God as miserly because he leaves unsatisfied her burning desire for sexual gratifica- tion. Though in outward appearance she seemed a model of good behaviour and innocence, she confessed to me soon after the analysis began that she had long ago made up her mind to give herself to the first comer, boy or man. Funda- mentally she was a girl of excellent disposition, but had been corrupted by the brutality of her early seduction and by her experiences with her parents. Not until the anxiety had been allayed could her thoughts and feelings be directed into higher channels. Behind the figure of the miserly cousin lurks that of the father, whom she regards as stingy. He is, indeed, often financially embarrassed. She says that he is always preaching morality to her. (In fact, he is an able and excellent man.) The flaccid and deeply-furrowed 258 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS features of the hallucinatory image of God are reminiscent of a severe illness from which her mother nearly died five years ago. As a child, she had not long taken Father Christmas seriously ; for her he had soon become simply a comic figure. Pastor J. was an old bore. He seemed to be breaking up. She hated Pastor C. on account of his strictness. The analyst was in the phase of what is termed " negative transference." Towards him was now directed the hatred which really attached to the persons who were being spoken of during the analysis. It was plainly meant that, like father, mother, cousin, Father Christmas, and the two pas- tors, he should make his way to God, and be cleared from off the face of the earth. A hypocritically pious wish! How can one wish anything better for another than that he shall be absorbed into God ? After the foregoing analysis, the phantom assumed for a few days a blasphemous and ludicrous aspect, but it was not difficult to lay that spectre in its turn. Next came an image in which God resembled the sun. His body had vanished, and his hair stood on end like shafts radiating from the sun. The face had completely changed. Its expression recalled that of a bird of prey ; also that of Pastor L. ; also that of Calvin and that of Bonivard (the prisoner of Chilion). It was clean shaven, like that of her grandfather and like that of a well-known Mormon. The eyes were like those of the miserly Itzig in Freytag's Soil und Haben. Here, manifestly, we have quite a new image of God, but the psychical content has altered very little. The radiating shafts recall the hair of a demon, or that of Shock-headed Peter. We see that a mocking spirit towards God still persists. Pastor L. is a celebrated preacher, but a fanatic like Calvin, and worshipping, like Calvin, a gloomy God. Boni- vard spent many years in prison chained to a pillar. The patient would like all the figures she condenses into the image of God to share Bonivard's fate. The pastor is as old as her father and her cousin. Her mother respects him enormously. Before he came to play his part in the God condensation, he had been very ill and had grown doited. A DISCUSSION OF CASES 259 The grandfather who is also condensed into the God image, the grandfather who is always nagging and preaching, is likewise softheaded. The Mormon is a cunning fellow, who assumes a mask of piety, but plays all sorts of pranks, loves to talk to canary birds, but really wants to snare very different birds. Her grandfather, too, is fond of talking to their cage- bird. The miserly Itzig reintroduces a leading trait of the cousin. Once more into this image of God are introduced fanati- cism, gloomy characteristics, a tendency to nag and to moralise, miserliness, and a spirit of lascivious calculation. As a punishment come physical and mental weakness, per- haps culminating in death. Thus the hatred felt for human beings is transferred to the idea of God. I must omit an account of the subsequent developments. In the end, the blasphemous fantasies completely dis- appeared. Still later, a cure ensued, and has been main- tained for ten years.1 The foregoing case throws some light upon the origins of the idea of God. The next one may help us to understand the manner in which pious feelings are constituted. A girl of sixteen was sent to me on account of morbid melancholy, antagonism to domestic occupations, unman- nerly conduct towards her parents, and a sense of weariness of life. The melancholy always manifested itself in young people's society, when anything was said about love, or when there was dancing. It was easy to ascertain that a childish love affair lay at the root of the trouble. When twelve years old, she had fallen in love, and had been compelled in the roughest way to dismiss her admirer to the accom- paniment of humiliating reproaches. (During the accesses of melancholy, which were attended with fits of weeping, she was not consciously thinking of this affair.) From the date of her admirer's dismissal, she conceived a hatred for the God of love, whom she had appointed protector of her tender relationship. This did not prevent her from offering up ardent prayers to the primal source of creative energy ; but God was anathema to her, for the Bible says that God is love, and she loathed love. • Pfister, Die psychanaljrtische Methode, pp. 207-210. 260 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS We need not dwell upon her dislike of housework. Even in the absence of an intimate knowledge of the formative energies of religion, it is obvious that there is a connexion between the disturbance of love in the earthly and in the heavenly sphere. Simultaneously with the disappearance of the anxiety, there vanished also the patient's hostility to the God of love.1 The foregoing brief record of cases will suffice for our present purposes. We have now achieved an adequate sketch of the pheno- mena of the evolution and the aberration of the love sentiment in children, in so far as it is directed towards individual objects. Stress has been laid upon objective facts, in the hope that the reader will feel impelled to devote his own attention to similar phenomena. Those who have never made any observations will regard what we have been describing as strange, and perhaps even as preposterous. Acrimonious critics may go as far so to suggest that the accounts of the cases have been sophisticated. I can, however, point to the unanimous testimony of a large and increasing number of observers who are not crippled by any dread of facts and have recorded numerous similar observations. Before passing on to the discussion of causes, it will be necessary to consider the changes which the activity of love undergoes in the course of its development. Here also it will be impossible to achieve a systematic isolation or complete- ness. All that the reader must expect is a sketch of the groundwork upon which theories will subsequently be erected. 1 Pfister, Die psychanalytische Methode, pp. 170 et seq. B MODIFICATIONS IN THE LOVE FUNCTION There is no end to the multiplicity of the manifestations of the love life. They are infinitely manifold as regards individual objects, and no less manifold are the forms of mental activity and experience associated with these mani- festations. Think, for a moment, how inexhaustible is the psychological task imposed upon the student of love by the sentence in which Selma Lagerlof so finely describes the relationship of a father to his child : " The whole life became proud and beautiful when irradiated with the wealth of this one spirit." Incredibly vast, too, is the abundance of the functional modifications to which the love sentiment of children is liable. Just as the spring sunshine is transformed into the blossoming of flowers, the songs of the birds, the dance of the butterflies, the building of nests, the urge of love, so in favourable circumstances are a child's affections transformed into the brilliance of spring, the glory of summer, and the mellowness of autumn ; into joy of life and devotion to duty, into goodness and self-denial, into love of man and love of God. In the smile of Jesus blessing the little ones is reproduced the smile of Mary clasping her child to her breast -a smile which has spread from the little kitchen in Nazareth to illumine the world. The heroic deeds of the poor Father of the Poor in Stans (Pestalozzi) were but the children and grandchildren of the loving services and loving words showered on a receptive child by the doctor's widow in Zurich and her trusty maid. The inconspicuous experiences of a child arouse inclinations, aspirations, and longings which may seem petty and trifling. But just as the dingy caterpillar develops into the resplendent butterfly, so is it, in favourable cir- cumstances, with the development of the primitive yearnings and doings of the heart of a child, which already contains in the germ the loftiest possibilities of the moral personality. 261 262 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS But just as the slightest injury of the germinating plant may lead to the production of a crippled tree, so may any interference with the evolution of the love sentiment be momentous for evil. It would be a pleasure to me to give an attractive picture of the normal course of development. I trust my readers will not suspect me of a preference for the morbid because I refrain from dealing with these highly important facts. There would certainly be no reason for being ashamed of feeling more sympathy for those plants that are at an especial disadvantage in the matter of growth. But I have another reason for concentrating attention upon the abnormal. Our positive knowledge is still far too slender for an adequate survey of the intimately multiform processes of normal development. William Stern, for example, in his Psychology of early Childhood,1 finds very little to say concerning the love sentiments of children during the early months and years. We shall still have to devote ourselves for a considerable period to the study of the pathology of love before we shall be competent to consider the normal processes. That is why I am now concerned with describing a number of instances of abnormal development. 1 Cf. Stern, op. cit., pp. 84 et seq., 330 et seq. CHAPTER FIFTEEN BODILY ABNORMALITIES AS MANIFESTATIONS OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF LOVE IN CHILDREN The same complications that disturb the development of the love sentiment in children, may, under certain conditions (as an outcome of particular suppressions), give rise to bodily troubles which may assume the most varied forms. The nervous disorders supervening in such children find expres- sion in bodily lesions as well. Lay observers, and not a few doctors trained to take purely materialistic views, are apt to regard these troubles as due only to physical causes, when in reality they are mentally determined. Between the physicians of the older way of thinking and the neurologists trained to understand the new outlooks there has been a controversy concerning the explanation of the so-called nervous or neurotic bodily symptoms, and ever more plainly the balance inclines in favour of the opinions of the new school. For whereas the conservatives of the medical world have nothing more satisfactory than the world " nervousness " to offer in explanation of the troubles we are considering, they are unable in these cases to demonstrate the existence of any changes in the nerves, and those among them who are eager for knowledge seem to be sitting before an impenetrable curtain which is not stirred by the least breath of wind. On the other hand, the doctors of the modern psychoanalytical trend are able to point to the unconscious wishes which give rise to the disturbances in question ; they can actually demonstrate how these unconscious determinants have originated ; and they are able to carry on a successful struggle with the motives which have hitherto been hidden, but have now been drawn forth into the light of day. Among the legion of bodily symptoms classed within the domain of hysteria, but met with also in other illnesses, I may mention the following : 263 264 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS 1. Abnormalities of movement. Spasmodic affections (convulsive laughing, weeping, and crying), stammering, paralyses that ensue upon playing a musical instrument, dumbness, aphonia, incapacity to stand or walk, twitches (tics convulsifs, such as spasm of the eyelids, spasmus nutans, shoulder twitching, automatic excursions of the pen in writing, trembling of the fingers when playing the piano), grinding the teeth during sleep, nocturnal incontinence of urine, somnambulism, constipation or diarrhoea, palpitation or arhythmia cordis. 2. Abnormalities of sensation. Various forms of head- ache, migraine, itching, neuralgia, gastralgia, nephralgia, the feeling that the hair is being pulled out, creeping sensations in the fingers, the fingers and toes becoming " dead," hiccup, bulimia, urgent desire to make water, loss of appetite, deaf- ness, a more or less complete loss of the sense of taste, asthma. 3. Abnormalities of the vascular system. Blushing, skin eruptions, swelling of the nasal mucous membrane after certain experiences, morbid sneezing, acute nasal catarrh, pyrexia (even in patients suffering from tuberculosis, pyrexia may sometimes be due to mental determinants), sweating, salivation, etc. Many of these symptoms may, of course, also be due to purely physical causes ; and it would be foolish to assume that they are always mentally determined because they some- times originate from psychical causes. Only the experienced doctor can decide whether the causation is mental or bodily. But it is indispensable that medical practitioners should abandon the idea that material causation is the only thing to be considered, for this conception has worked an infinite amount of mischief. Due allowance must be made both for bodily and for mental determinants, and a competent physician must be master alike of psychological and of physiological methods of examination and treatment. Nor must it be forgotten that mental and bodily causes frequently cooperate. For example, such a symptom as coughing may primarily be induced by purely physical causes, but may persist thanks to unconscious motivation long after the original physical trouble has disappeared. On the other hand, bodily symptoms (such as pain) which might have BODILY ABNORMALITIES 265 been expected as the outcome of certain physical disorders, may fail to appear thanks to psychical influences emanating from the unconscious. If we propose to consider these bodily manifestations as functions of the love sentiment, we do so in the sense which has repeatedly been explained. Love is never isolated, but is intimately associated with all those experiences and activities that form the centre of the mental life. Examples of this are so numerous in psychoanalytical literature, that it is superfluous for me to insist upon the fact. CHAPTER SIXTEEN INTELLECTUAL ABNORMALITIES It is easy to prove that sensations, perceptions, conceptions, judgments-in a word, all the activities of the intelligence- are or may be closely connected with love. The assertion may seem especially contestable as regards the most elemen- tary and as regards the highest phenomena of mentation, but even as concerns these extremes, psychoanalysis discloses an intimate dependence upon love, alike in a positive and in a negative respect. Here is a fact which proves that elementary sensations and simple perceptions are subject to the influence of the love life. Exceedingly weak sensory stimuli, such as would remain unperceived in ordinary circumstances, may arouse strong impressions when conscious or unconscious love is at work. Conversely, in such conditions, strong stimuli may remain unperceived. An extremely faint odour may arouse attention because it is connected with a pleasurably tinged experience which is of immediate importance ; an affectionate mother is awakened by the slightest noise made by her sick child. When no grounds can be discovered in the conscious for such hypersensibility, psychoanalysis will be competent to dis- cover them. Even more striking, and much commoner, are instances of the opposite kind, in which, under peculiar conditions, although external stimuli may be extremely powerful, sensations and perceptions do not arise. We may fail to see a tiresome person, although he greets us effusively. In a neurotic child, a finger or a toe may become completely anaesthetic. In the Middle Ages, girls with anaesthetic areas of skin were in danger of being burned as witches,1 but to-day we are better acquainted with the causes of such 1. Sensations. 1 Cf. Pfister, Was bietet die Psychanalyse dem Erzieher ? p. 49 266 INTELLECTUAL ABNORMALITIES 267 phenomena. We have noted the remarkable instance of the little boy who for a time became completely unaware of his surroundings, and believed himself to have been miraculously transported through space by guardian angels (supra p. 169). False perceptions, too, may often arise under the influence of the unconscious. Rorschach makes an ingenious use of this fact in his ably-designed " experiments in perceptive diag- nosis," whose great value in the recognition of morbid conditions and character traits I have frequently had occasion to note. Lack of space unfortunately makes it impossible for me to give an adequate account of these extremely interesting researches.1 Obviously, the love energies exercise a considerable influence upon the formation of thoughts. Every one knows that in children their love for their parents guides their judgments more than logical considerations. We need not assume that repression is at work in such cases. Where the unconscious is full of hatred for the father, a child will often passionately reject ideas which are especially cherished by the latter. An aristocratic or an egoistic philosophy of life will frequently arise in boys or girls as a reaction against feelings of inferiority, these feelings being in their turn dependent upon the rejection of love. The choice of sub- jects for reflection, the selection of a career, the preference given to certain topics of study, the rejection of other topics despite a natural gift for them-such things are closely connected with the play of the love sentiments. I knew a father whose son was of a refractory disposition. By way of experiment, the father concealed his true opinions and paraded views of an opposite tenour, this leading the immature youth, by way of contradiction, to adopt the views which were precisely those the father wished him to have. Hatred for the State, the existing social system, militarism, or God, is often a manifestation of unconscious hostility to the father (vide supra p. 152). In a young man psycho- analysed by Ernst Schneider, the whole mental activity was concentrated upon the idea of the disestablishment of the church, as if the separation of church from State had been 2. Thoughts. * Rorschach, Psychodiaguostik, Bircher, Berne and Leipzig, 1921. 268 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS the only important matter in the world. The real deter- minant of this almost comical restriction of the sphere of thought was the intolerable relationship that obtained between the lad's parents, and the persistent urge of the problem whether they ought not to seek a legal separation. The more remarkable and the more abstruse the way in which a child's thoughts are directed towards the world, the more probable is the supposition that a cramping of the love sentiment must be at work. When the subterranean con- duit leading to a fountain is partially blocked, the water emerges spasmodically, and we see a similar thing in the case of the mental life of a child whose development is interfered with by a cramping of the love sentiment. But here factors of extraordinary complexity are at work. We see children, especially among those who have been surrounded by hysterical sentimentalists from their earliest years, who incline in their thinking to flit perpetually from one topic to another without going deeply into anything. Moreover, they are little concerned with the study of their own depths ; they shun quiet meditation ; they like to wear their hearts upon their sleeves ; they are fond of wide horizons, but are fundamentally shallow. Let no one suppose that this disposition is solely inborn. It is the outcome of environ- mental influences, although predisposition may play a part in its production. But it may happen that such centrifugal natures, as I have termed them,1 come so sharply into collision with the outer world that they are thrust back upon themselves. Such haphazard thinkers may even be trans- formed into mystics. 3. Introverted Thinking. If a child's love for its associates is exposed to powerful hindrances (as happens, for instance, when there is a strict father, or a mother with an itch for training up a model child) a centripetal trend of thought is induced. Persons whose vital impetus turns away from the outer world and is vigorously directed inwards, are spoken of as introverts. In many instances, probably in the large majority, introversion is the outcome of experiences in childhood, experiences which will be considered in a later part of this book. The ' Was bietet die Psychanalysc dem Erzieher ? p. 66. INTELLECTUAL ABNORMALITIES 269 effects upon thought are manifold. There may arise an intellectualism, which disdains all emotional values, and whose aridity betrays the slenderness of its foundations ; there may be interminable immature cogitations concerning philosophical profundities ; obsessive immersion in a single thought, which haunts the mind and absorbs the major part of the mental energies, although the logical intelligence may recognise its futility ; purely formalist thinking, which wastes itself in sterile scholasticisms, straining at gnats and swal- lowing camels, but never finding its way into the domain of what is really worth pondering ; eccentricity of various kinds. On the other hand, there may be an indulgence in luxuriant fantasies, wherein the ego plays a brilliant role which is to compensate for the pitifulness of reality; interminable spinning of day-dreams, which have a certain biological value (inasmuch as they save the oppressed spirit from despair by enabling it to withdraw into an ideal world), but which hinder useful thought and activity, and in the end thrust the deluded cobweb-spinner back into unsatisfying reality. Both these varieties of thinking, the obsessive pondering and the obsessive imagining, render reading, study, and creative thought, almost impossible, and represent a flight from reality. Many young persons are affected with obsessional mind-wandering. While their thought chases whimsies which have no bearing on actual life, indispensable actualities are ignored. All such persons, without exception, are suffering from a cramped love life. Highly gifted boys and girls are failures at school because their mental energies wither in the atmosphere of sterile pondering and imagining.1 The ultimate cause will be found in the love relationships. For this reason, rewards and punishments, example and precept, which are directed solely to the sufferer's conscious, are unavailing. As a rule, they merely increase the need, and the inhibition of thought which is its consequence. The extreme importance of the influence exercised upon character by this modification of the intelligence, is obvious. 4. Excess or Deficiency of Intellectual Activity. Under the influence of love, thought may achieve abnormal tasks, or may fall short of the normal. Love makes people 1 Cf. Pfister, Vermeintliche Nullen und angebliche Musterkinder. 270 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS resourceful; but sometimes it makes them stupid, especially when the unconscious is in control. Schneider reports the case of a schoolboy who had suddenly forgotten a simple proposition concerning equilateral triangles. The lad was in general good at mathematics, so his teacher gave him a scolding, which naturally did not help matters. The boy was a stammerer. When he was psychoanalysed in the hope of discovering the reason for the sudden access of forget- fulness, it appeared that the equilateral triangles had revived the memory of triangles which had ornamented the coffin of his unloved father. This memory, however, did not rise clearly into consciousness. As so often happens, the con- scious was aware of nothing more than the feelings which had originally been associated with the ideas. The teacher's rough chiding recalled the father's behaviour, and behind the renunciation of thought lurked the wish : " If only you, like my father, were lying beneath such triangles, I should be at peace from you as I am from father I " A charming example is that given by Zulliger in a work edited by me and entitled Psychanalytische Erfahrungen aus der Volksschulpraxis (pp. 104 et seq.). A boy who had hitherto been a good arithmetician, suddenly broke down in mental arithmetic-to his own and the teacher's astonishment. The teacher, who was familiar with psychoanalytical theory and practice, did not fall into the usual mistake of inflicting punishment, but sought the reasons for the inhibition of thought. It transpired that the lad had become unable to do mental arithmetic because his sweetheart, who was a shopgirl, had got into trouble through the failure of her powers in this respect. There was thus an unconscious self-assimilation, a chivalrous assumption of his sweetheart's incapacity. Elsewhere I have recorded a third instance.1 A lady who had successfully passed her examination in jurisprudence, was unable for seven years to write her thesis on the subject she had chosen, which was " The Theft of Water." Psycho- analysis speedily disclosed the reason. At the time when the foregoing topic was chosen, the lady was acquainted with a civil engineer whose chief professional concern was with waterworks. He was unhappy in his married life, and fell in love with the young law student, who, despite herself, 1 Was bietet die Psychanalyse dem Erzieher ? p. 49. INTELLECTUAL ABNORMALITIES 271 returned his affection. She said to herself, as he also continued to assure her, that his marriage would prove disastrous to him. On the other hand she realised that a divorce would be ruinous to the wife, who was absolutely dependent upon her husband. The relationship lasted for six years before it led to a divorce, monopolising the young woman's interest all the time. When, finally, the married pair separated, the girl was still troubled with moral scruples as to whether she had acted rightly, or whether she ought at an earlier date to have urged her lover to separate from his wife. It was on his account that she had chosen the subject for her thesis. Behind the theft of the material sub- stance with which her lover's daily work was connected, was hidden the idea of the theft from his wife, of the offence she herself wished to commit but which was morally forbidden. As long as her mind was still perplexed concerning this erotic theft, she was unable to solve the juridical problem. A few days after the connexion had been brought into her con- sciousness, the scientific difficulties in the way of writing the thesis were for the most part easily surmounted. But then came a new hitch. She could not make up her mind whether the civil or the criminal aspects of the legal question ought first to be considered. This difficulty, likewise, required psychoanalysis for its removal. She was unable to decide whether she ought to do penance for the error she had at length realised, or whether she was entitled to enter upon her new life without further delay. When this personal difficulty had been cleared up, the scientific problem of the thesis was easy to solve. 5. Vagaries of Thought. Under the influence of unconscious love, thought will play all kinds of tricks when it is able to elude strict super- vision. The quaintest things have come within my own experience. One day I was pleading the cause of a committee which had been blamed for buying a quantity of unsuitable foodstuffs. I was trying to show that there was no ground for the censure, seeing that the goods had been disposed of upon very advantageous terms. A slip that found its way into the typescript betrayed how little my unconscious was willing to admit the force of this exculpation. I wrote : 272 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS " Das Komitee hat diese angeschaaft, weil. ..." 1 On another occasion I was writing to a young woman to con- gratulate her upon her engagement to marry. In childhood she had played all sorts of pranks on me, and had banged me about to her heart's content. She had now grown into a fine figure of a woman. I wrote : "You will certainly become an excellent Haufrau." 2 Fond as I was of the destined bride, my unconscious had stored up some little grudges against her on account of manhandlings endured fifteen years earlier. In children the unconscious plays such tricks of love and hate with especial frequency. 6. The Memory. Memory, likewise, will be forced into strange channels by love. Here, too, we may see both supernormal and subnormal functioning. It is sometimes difficult to decide whether we shall feel more admiration for the amazing fidelity with which the most trifling incidents are remembered when they have aroused the interest of our affections, or disdain for the shameless way in which our minds will some- times expunge or distort our memories of the most momentous incidents. As Freud has shown, forgetfulness is not invari- ably a passive process, but is often a thrusting down into the unconscious undertaken upon the initiative of the uncon- scious. When the gap thus left in the conscious is filled by another idea, which does not comport with reality but is obstinately believed to be a true reminiscence, it is termed a concealing memory.3 Children are often regarded as untruthful when they declare that they remember certain things, and when their elders know that these alleged memories are not in accordance with the facts. In many instances, the falsification of memory is an unconscious process which is no less irrevocably determined than is the thinker's honest conviction that the memory is accurate. » Pfister meant to write " angeschafft " : " The committee procured these things because. . . The word " angeschaaft " is invented by his un- conscious, and carries with it the connotations attaching to Schaafkopf (Schafskopf), i.e. blockhead. " The committee has been fool enough to procure these things. . . ."-Translators' Note. » " Haufrau " instead of " Hausfrau " (housewife). " Hauen " means to hew, to beat, to whip, so that a " Haufrau " would be a termagant.-• Translators' Note. 3 Cf. Freud, Zur Psychopathologie des Alltagslcbens, sixth edition, pp. 48 et seq. ; Psychopathology of Everyday Life, pp. 57 et scq. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN ABNORMALITIES OF THE AFFECTIVE LIFE We know that the distinction between intelligence and feeling is really artificial, and that the distinction between feeling and will is more artificial still. In every mental process, from the most elementary to the highest, the intellect, the emotions, and the will are all cooperating. Certain psychologists recognise no distinction between feeling and will, since every feeling contains conative elements ; and there are some, again, whom I believe to be mistaken, who look upon both feeling and will as mere sensations, thus assigning a preponderant role to the primitive bodily sensa- tions. I shall make no attempt here to decide these contentious questions, which have been fruitlessly debated for several decades. Suffice it to point out the intimate connexion between the three basic functions of the mind. i. Sensory Feelings. The sensory feelings are greatly influenced by love. In like manner, the general mood is strongly influenced by love, whether the love be successful or unsuccessful. When the love sentiment runs a happy course, when it is quite uncramped, when there are no obstacles in the unconscious, the subject is in a rosy mood, and projects his sense of wellbeing on to outward things, which consequently seem delightful and splendid. Conversely, when the love longing is ungratified, a gloomy mood ensues, as may be readily observed, not only in old maids (unjustly the butt of popular opprobrium), but also in children. The unconscious plays a great part in producing these moods. When, in the conscious, love burns brightly, and there is nevertheless depression not accounted for by any organic cause, psychoanalysis will as a rule disclose that there are hindrances in the unconscious, 273 274 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS and ere long the conscious love will be affected by influences proceeding from the depths. But a cheerful mood may also be the outcome of unconscious determinants, and is then apt to be transient. The pendulum of feeling has swung too high on the positive side. Especially in hysteria and mania do we see such ecstatic intoxication in the absence of adequate* external cause ; but in such cases this mood is likely soon to be replaced by an abnormal depression. Closely connected with the foregoing are psychically determined lassitude and excessive liability to fatigue. I have known children which suffered greatly from fatigue, in the absence of any bodily disorder, and without there having been any undue expenditure of energy. They are weary when they go for their holidays, which may perhaps be prolonged on medical advice ; but they are just as weary when the holidays are over. In such cases, cramping cir- cumstances are always at work. One instance was that of a boy whose domestic environment was unfavourable ; he could not do his home work properly because the room was disturbed by the noises of family life ; and he detested his teacher and his schoolfellows. The unhappy lad, who was profoundly discontented with life, had an immoderate affection for animals. In a New Year's letter he declared that he must go to the country " to embrace cows and calves," for human beings only made him ill. In this case there was severe mental disturbance, which was not cured by several years' stay in the country. He became to some extent adapted to peasant surroundings, but could not achieve a satisfactory relationship to life. In another youngster there was excessive fatigue in connexion with convulsive laughing and weeping, also associated with anxiety manifestations.1 These symptoms were mainly due to a repression of the love for his brothers and sisters ; the analysis dispelled them, and cured the fatigue without a holiday being necessary. Old-fashioned doctors, knowing nothing of the effects of mental inhibitions, are often content to advise a change of air when the trouble for which the patient has consulted them is in truth mentally determined. The prescription is unavailing because the sufferer takes his conflict, his " black ' Die psychanalytische Methode, pp. 152 et seq. ABNORMALITIES OF THE AFFECTIVE LIFE 275 dog," with him into the new surroundings. For the same reason, rest in bed may be most injurious in fatigue that is mentally determined ; for, in the isolation of his bedroom, the patient has little else to do but brood over his conflicts, whereas if he were prescribed a moderate amount of work he would be kept in contact with reality. When confined to bed, he is thrust into passivity (every neurosis is the replacement of normal activity by harmful passivity), and is given opportunities for the incubation of his systematised neurosis. I have known a number of persons suffering from nervous disorder whose symptoms were gravely aggravated by the prescription of rest in bed-sometimes enforced, but often willingly accepted. No doubt neurasthenics, that is to say persons exhausted by overwork, may benefit by rest in bed, especially if their mental troubles be simultaneously cared for; but it is a grave error to treat neurotics in this way. The old materialistic outlook was that rest was necessary for a sick limb, and therefore for a sick nervous system ; consequently, every neurotic must enjoy absolute repose. In reality, when there is a strong urge towards activity, there is nothing so irritating as enforced rest. How is it that people fail to apply to children the knowledge which every farmer's son gains from watching his father's horses ? 1 Psychogenic (mentally determined) fatigue is an unmis- takable sign of a break-down of the love sentiment-its break- down in certain important respects, even if the collapse be not complete. I know of no exception to this generalisation. Closely connected with the love sentiment are people's fancies as regards certain articles of diet. A dislike for foods that are wholesome and are generally found agreeable is frequently the outcome of repressed experiences or fantasies. There is a regular gradation of such feelings, ranging from simple distaste to positive loathing, or to the onset of anxiety symptoms and absolute incapacity to swallow when the attempt is made to consume the distasteful viand. External compulsion usually increases the loathing, and is apt also to increase the number of articles that are under taboo. Psychoanalysis, on the other hand, when circumstances make it possible, will overcome the aversion, which in many cases 1 Ct. Pfister, F. W. Foerster-ein Psychanalytiker ? 276 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS makes it very difficult to feed the patient properly. Else- where I have recorded numerous instances of the kind, and it will suffice here to mention one case. Since her eleventh year a lady had been unable to take vinegar. In especial, its smell had been repulsive to her, since the unfortunate day when she had been given some salad made with oil but no vinegar, and some one had said : " Oil needs vinegar, just as woman needs man." She had rejoined : " Then I won't have any vinegar, for I loathe men! " As soon as this repressed experience had been recalled to consciousness, she had quite a relish for vinegar. It is worth noting that this lady's husband was unable for a time to enjoy anything sweet during a period in which he had ceased to care for his wife and other people. Conversely, an excessive fondness for particular articles of diet may be connected with love and sexuality.1 Loss of appetite often betrays indifference to love, whereas bulimia may indicate a love craving. Psycho- analysts frequently observe cases in which some one who for years has had a poor appetite, will suddenly acquire a taste for his meals, and will even for a time eat gluttonously before he settles down to the normal. This changed attitude towards food invariably betokens a new outlook on love. Anyone who will not eat except as a duty, will usually be found to be one who does not love ; but we must not infer from this that every one who does not love will be found to have a poor appetite. Many remarkable preferences can be explained by a study of their unconscious determinants and their relation- ships with the amatory life. From the age of seventeen to twenty-one a youth had a predilection for dirtying his hands or his face ; he was on the watch for opportunities for doing this, and would, for instance, smear his face and hands with blacking. When doing so he had an anticipatory enjoyment of the thorough cleansing that was to follow, and of the forthcoming change of clothing. Sexual conflicts were a serious trouble to this young man. Subsequently he made " a great discovery," namely that he could wash even in very dirty water so long as there was plenty of it. This sort 1 Cf. Pfister, Die psychanalytische Methode, p. 80. Also Zum Kampf urn die Psychoanalyse, p. 61. ABNORMALITIES OF THE AFFECTIVE LIFE 277 of washing was a great delight to him. Underlying the procedure was the idea that one can hide oneself in the most sordid surroundings if they are those that obtain in a large city. Moreover, as in the case of Lady Macbeth, the physical cleansing symbolised moral purification. Sport often represents a functional substitute for love and sexual activity. Bodily exertion (which always entails mental exertion), long walks, football, fencing, and the like, are apt to monopolise interest in persons who suffer from hindrances to the gratification of their lower or higher love needs, or in whom repression prevents these needs from making a way into consciousness. A craze for sport, like any other kind of fanaticism, is invariably the mask for such restrictions. Of course other factors, such as friendship, pugnacity,1 the love of power, or the desire for fame, may contribute to this diversion into sport of the mental energies that are really appropriate to love. The manifestations of the sexual life are of the utmost importance. I shall limit myself here to isolated phenomena, reserving a comprehensive outlook for a later stage of the enquiry. When no sexual urges manifest themselves at puberty, there must be powerful repressions at work. I have seen such a state of affairs in young persons exhibiting various morbid abnormalities. But I am confident that individuals exist who persistently repress their fundamental impulses, and sublimate these, without therefore suffering from any symptoms of disease. Far more common, however, are the cases in which the complete bridling of the sexual urges gives rise to anxiety manifestations, obsessional neurosis, or bodily disorder. It should hardly be necessary to remind the reader that repression is a very different thing from control. In repression, the thrusting down into the unconscious is so vigorously effected that the impulse is no longer within the orbit of consciousness, but this does not happen when control is exercised. A thoroughgoing repres- sion of love impairs the capacity for love. When the repression of sexuality is sudden, the subject becomes a living corpse. Those who walk the earth like shadows are always victims of the repression of elemental sexuality and the higher manifestations of love. 1 Bovet, L'instinct combatif, Delachaux and Niestl6, NeuchAtel and Paris, 1917; The Fighting Instinct. George Allen and Unwin, London, 1913. 278 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS Sexual hyperexcitability is common in children. It dis- plays itself in uncontrollable masturbation ; in violent sexual onslaughts upon other human beings or upon animals ; or in a craze for certain inanimate objects, such as pocket- handkerchiefs, stockings, other articles of clothing, jewelry, etc. The factors of such emotional hyperexcitability may work either directly or indirectly, or in both ways combined. There may have been special sexual stimulation ; or the outlets for the vital impetus may be so greatly restricted that it can find no other issue. In severe cases, rewards and punishments, threats and precepts, are of no avail. In most instances, however, a great deal can be done by psychoanalytical treatment. The following incident shows how much harm may result from sexual hyperaesthesia even at a very early age. A doctor wrote to me that his little girl, who was not yet of school age, had suddenly thrust her hand into the fly of his trousers, and simultaneously burst out crying convulsively, so that he immediately realised that she was acting under the urge of sexual desire. In every case it is essential to ascertain whether a morbid compulsion is at work. Should this be so, the use of disciplinary coercion is simply a useless torture, for the essential thing is to go to the root of the mischief, which lies in the unconscious. In slight cases it may suffice to bring about derivation towards more desirable activities. A boy under my care who mas- turbated, and had been driven to despair by the terrifying letters of an unscrupulous quack, got no help from friendly counsel or from prayer. The lad was reduced to such a pass that he made a nocturnal assignation with me in a wood, and produced an open knife with which he wished to stab himself. Unfortunately at that time I knew nothing of psychoanalysis, and therefore allowed his sufferings to con- tinue for an unnecessarily long time. The conflict persisted until I ceased to concern myself directly with his sexual troubles, and induced him to join me in reading K. F. Meyer. The poor fellow knew that the man whose name he bore was not his father, and that the greatly admired hero who was his real progenitor despised him and was ashamed of his existence. He felt that nobody cared for him ; and he could find no object for his love, since he believed that his school- mates also despised him. He therefore took refuge in an ABNORMALITIES OF THE AFFECTIVE LIFE 279 excess of sexuality, adopting the form which is ever available to the solitary-masturbation. But the fact that some one was interested in him provided an outlet for his stagnant vital impetus, and reinstated his sense of self-satisfaction. 2. Inhibition of Feeling in relation to Anxiety. Sometimes the feelings undergo atrophy in a most enigmatic way. Quite suddenly, perhaps, a child will cease to care for its parents or for its brothers and sisters. Yes- terday the fires of love were burning cheerfully ; to-day nothing remains but a heap of ashes, a feeling of disillusion- ment, and perhaps a sentiment of self-reproach. Sometimes this may happen repeatedly, until at length the normal sentiment of love ceases to revive, and a sense of absolute isolation supervenes. The same thing may happen in the case of other feelings besides love. We know that there are arid professors who resemble dried plants. They lack the sap of feeling, the fresh aroma of life. Their books are like herbaria, in which no one but a bespectacled pundit can find the smallest interest. What is the cause of this desiccation of feeling ? In the depths there lurks an unconscious counter-impulse. Often, beneath the threshold, love and hatred are simultaneously at work (an " ambivalent attitude "), and this duplicity of feeling takes effect upon consciousness. We have seen that in such instances indifference may ensue ; but sometimes there may result a prolonged oscillation between love and indifference, or love and loathing. Not infrequently, some influence from without affects the unconscious in such a way that the conscious feeling is drawn down into the depths. It may have been that the feeling was the outcome of a subconscious illusion, and that the disappearance of the feeling has been due to the annulment of the illusion. Every spurious feeling, that is to say every feeling that is not affirmed both by the conscious and by the unconscious mental life, constitutes a danger to the personality. The educationist must learn to distinguish in his pupils between real or genuine and unreal or spurious feelings. Even the half- cultured know that the ardour of a feeling is no indication of its durability or its effectiveness. But only the psycho- logical study of the depths of mentality leads us to discover 280 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS how far the feelings are genuine and instinct with vital energy, thereby enabling us to fulfil one of the most important of pedagogic tasks. Among the manifestations which give the educationist concern and trouble, one of the commonest is anxiety. Anxiety is distinguished from fear by the fact that fear arises only when there is actual danger, whereas anxiety may occur when there is no objective menace. Many persons affected with anxiety neurosis will remain perfectly calm in the most dangerous situations, but will be intensely excited and dis- tressed when there is no danger at all. Children are especially apt to suffer from anxiety for which there is no objective cause. A child will awaken from sleep in a state of intense anxiety, crying lamentably or furiously. When we ask the reason, all the child can tell us is : "I am frightened, but I don't know why." More often, however, some real or imaginary object or action is stated to be the cause of the fear. Thus the anxiety may be said to be aroused by various animals, such as mice, cats, dogs, horses, frogs, cockchafers ; by human beings, such as teachers or other persons in authority, bearded or beardless men, strangers, etc. ; by various actions, such as climbing stairs, going down hill, dancing, having to sign one's name, having to recite before acquaintances or others (stage fright) ; or the anxiety may concern the health of some particular individual, or that of the subject (hypochondria). When children are unable to give any reason for their anxiety, they have often dreamed of a bugbear, or had a hallucination of some terrifying creature. A schoolmistress brought me a little boy seven years old who was a trouble to her. He was up to all sorts of tricks ; if he picked up a needle he would prick his schoolfellows with it; and in general, his behaviour was extraordinarily wayward and impudent. When asked to do the most reasonable things, he would defiantly answer : " Shan't ! " ; and neither kindness nor severity could induce him to mend his manners. He suffered from sleeplessness and from disturbing dreams. Though he was put to bed at seven in the evening and did not get up until eight in the morning, he was always tired after these bad nights. His appetite was poor, and he was greatly emaciated. ABNORMALITIES OF THE AFFECTIVE LIFE 281 I asked him whether he felt " frightened " at night. At first he said " no." But later, unprompted, he told me that when he woke up at night it seemed to him as if some one were coming. [What is " some one " like ?] A man dressed in black, with a long white beard and a pale face. Burning eyes. Angry. He rushes in and carries me off into the forest. He pulls me along by the ears. I often dream of him. He stabs me in the hand, in the pulse. [Do you know anyone like the man in the dream ? ] Yes, Father Christmas. [What does he do ?] He catches naughty little boys. [Does he stab them in the hand or the pulse ? ] No, but I have been told about a murderer who rushed in and stabbed some one in the pulse. I have been afraid of the man for a long time. It is obvious that this youngster is suffering from a moral conflict, which arouses a sense of wrongdoing and a dread of punishment. What is the cause ? In his sleepless hours he often thinks of how he does not love his mother, because she is always scolding and punishing him. He wants to pay her out. He has a similar feeling towards the faultfinding school- mistress. He must get even with her too. If his mother has been angry with him, he can punish her by being naughty at school, by annoying the schoolmistress, by being lazy. He knows that if he has bad reports, this will vex his mother. Thus the anxiety arises, partly from an uneasy conscience, but partly from the need for atonement. Father Christmas will punish him severely for his wrongdoing. As Freud has shown, an active impulse to torment others is the invariable complement of such a passive torment ; that is why the boy runs needles into his schoolfellows. The loss of appetite is the expression of the cramping of his love sentiment. I should mention that his mother was an extremely neurotic woman. A young woman psychoanalysed by me had suffered frequently from night-terrors when she was four or five years old. Seized with intense anxiety, she would jump out of bed and run screaming into the passage, and even into the public corridor. At that time she had been unable to explain the cause of her terror. It had been an idea which continued to trouble her for nearly twenty years. She imagined herself 282 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS to be confined in a corner, the walls of which were continually narrowing, threatening to crush her. This anxiety idea was such a distress to the girl that after she grew up she con- tinued to declare that she had never known happiness. She was utterly weary of life. When I first made her acquain- tance-she was then nearly twenty-five-the anxiety scene in the corner of a room would still recur to her every month or two. It now happened to her only in the day time, the paroxysm of anxiety being followed by a condition of semi- trance, in which she no longer knew where she was, having lost the sense of reality. This condition was free from anxiety, and was described as tolerably agreeable. In social life she would be extremely cheerful for a time, but this would be followed by a reaction, when it would seem to her that she had been greatly to blame for her cheerfulness. Why did the anxiety originate in childhood ? What is the meaning of the corner which threatens to crush her ? The case reminds us a little of that of the boy whose acquain- tance we made on p. 186. But here the exciting causes were different. Her parents were perpetually quarrelling. Her father was sometimes quite affectionate, and wanted to be kind to those dependent upon him. But he was extremely hot-tempered, and often inflicted brutal corporal punishment upon the little girl. He was always opposing his wife's wishes. Despite the punishments, the little girl loved him. After a time, the love was repressed from the conscious, but persisted in the unconscious, and this love made her try to resemble him as much as possible. Consequently she was ill-behaved towards her mother, impudent and refractory, in order to be like her father. The outraged mother reacted by administering severe whippings. In general, she was a kindly and affectionate woman. She regarded it as her duty to break her daughter's spirit ; but she also wished to arouse the child's better feelings, and to win the mutinous heart by kindness. Unconscious assimilation to the wrong-headed father and hostility to the severe mother were the deter- minants of the child's undutiful behaviour, which her conscious self strongly condemned. Thus there was a struggle between inclination and duty. After repression from the conscious, inclination continued to urge her to be like her father, and therefore to be refractory ABNORMALITIES OF THE AFFECTIVE LIFE 283 towards her mother, whereas her sense of duty made her blame herself for disobedience. The walls of the corner represented the father and the mother respectively. The conflict in the child's mind was a reflection of the conflict between her parents. The stagnation of her love sentiment was the cause of her anxiety. She ran out into the public corridor because she wished to escape from the situation in her home. She continued to display the incompatible traits of the father and the mother-the father's roughness and refractoriness, the mother's goodness and gentleness. The conflict lacerated her soul and made her life joyless. The analyst's task was to enable her to come to terms consciously with both these vital tendencies. Here is a third example. A girl of fifteen was suffering from a number of grave anxiety troubles. For three years she had been tormented by the dread that she would swallow a needle and would die of it after prolonged suffering. Before that, she had had a dread that she would bleed to death. A terror of thunderstorms and of men under her bed had also existed for years. The mother told me that this girl had shown no trace of nervous troubles before she went to school. According to my information, the parents were excellent persons, tender, with refined feelings and a sound outlook upon life, with well- controlled tempers, and a sense of humour. The patient had not had any terrifying experiences. Once, indeed, a cat had sprung at her face, but this had not left a strong impression. The first day at school had been a critical experience. The teacher was an alarming figure, not only on account of his big beard, but because his manner was rough. The mother had to take her little girl to school. The child's alarm increased when the violence of the teacher (who was given to drink) became more marked. The parents lived opposite the school, and could themselves see that the man would sometimes strike the pupils on the head. In our patient, the dread of the teacher was extended towards the whole school, including her schoolmates. When one of her classmates wanted the patient's doll, this was promptly surrendered, the patient being afraid that she would be scolded if she did not give it up. During the lessons, the child sat 284 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS mumchance. In the intervals she was always alone. The teacher said he had never had so quiet a pupil, and that there was something uncanny about this stillness. He was right. When she was with her parents she was always bright and happy-an extremely affectionate little girl. Before she was twelve years old she began to show a dread of animals, first of dogs and then of mosquitoes, but not of horses or cows. The dread of bleeding to death originated as follows. One day when she was twelve years old she was playing with a tape measure, and twisted it tightly round her neck. The constriction brought on an attack of nosebleed, such as is common at that age. The mother incautiously said : " You're bleeding as if you might bleed to death ! " The girl became deadly pale, saying : Oh, mother, is that true ? " The mother smilingly endeavoured to reassure her, but the obsession could not be dispelled. For three months thereafter, the child was continually asking : " Do you think I shall really bleed to death ? " The mother, much distressed, continued to repeat her assurance that it had only been a stupid joke. The girl could no longer smile and required a piteous expression. Often, too, she voiced a dread of appendicitis, and wanted to have her abdomen examined ; or if she read anything about cancer, she believed she was suffering from the disease. She was taken to see an aunt in an asylum, and this aroused a terror that she would go mad. After the dread of bleeding to death had lasted for three months, it passed away. Soon afterwards, however, she read in a newspaper about a soldier who had swallowed a needle, and had been killed by it after prolonged suffering. She was immediately seized with terror lest the same thing should happen to her. Every evening she would shake the curtains in the bedroom, and would look under the bed to make sure that there was no one there. She spent a great while making and remaking her bed before she could go to sleep. She had no feeling of affection for her teachers or her schoolfellows, and no love for God. I explained to the child the connexion between anxiety and the stagnation of love, showing her what a mistake it was to shun her schoolfellows and withdraw her love from ABNORMALITIES OF THE AFFECTIVE LIFE 285 God on account of her feeling towards the teacher. I asked her to take seriously Jesus' commandment to love, and advised her whenever the feeling of anxiety seized her to say to herself promptly : " I will take pains to love God and my fellow-beings, and to love this and that person besides those at home." The effect of this one conversation was remarkable. For the first time in several years she no longer looked under the bed ; the anxiety had vanished ; and the very same evening she said to her mother : " It is remarkable that a stranger should have been able to relieve my anxiety all in a moment ! " Her mother reported some additional noteworthy details. The girl had a peculiar attitude towards marriage. About two years earlier she had said that though she did not want to marry she would like to have a child. At that time she did not know where children came from, but her mother then explained the matter to her. On another occasion she said that no one would want to marry her, for she was not so pretty as her sister; (In reality she is exceedingly good- looking, and her mother says that she is quite free from physical defects.) Recently she was very indignant on her return from school because one of the girls had said that she would not like to have twins, and another had rejoined that for her part she would like to have twins, but she was too weak-it was scandalous that girls should talk of such matters. At her second and last visit, the child said that she had long wished to love God and her neighbour, but had not been able to do so. Since she had seen me she had tried again, and had found it quite easy. The anxiety and the hypo- chondria had vanished, and I therefore dismissed my little patient. This was unfortunately premature. The precise symptoms from which she had suffered did not return, but the timidity persisted. After six months, during which her mood had been excellent, new anxiety manifestations appeared, and she could not be persuaded to seek skilled advice. My own invitation that she should consult me was rejected, the reason for the refusal being her unconscious condensation of my personality with that of the ill-tempered teacher. After the lapse of a further six months, during which her troubles had increased, she came to see me accom- 286 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS panied by her mother, and reported the following symptoms. She suffered from a dread of being laughed at and of not getting on with her work at school: she felt that no one cared for her ; she was homesick during the long lessons ; she was timid in class, and was shy when strangers called at home. I drew her attention to the connexion between her experiences on her first day at school and her inability to love. It became apparent that she had forgotten much of the earlier instruction. By the time she next came to see me, the symptoms had disappeared, but on this occasion I arranged for a succession of further consultations at con- siderable intervals. There can be no doubt that the unfortunate experience with the ill-tempered teacher was not the sole cause of the troubles that have been described. The ritual in the bed- room and the peculiar attitude towards marriage arouse the suspicion that the girl had seen more than was desirable in her parents' bedroom. (Cf. infra, Chapter xxvi et seq.) Unquestionably, however, the stagnation of love was the chief determinant of the anxiety symptoms. This case exhibits some of the commonest forms of anxiety in children ; hypochondria, timidity, dread of animals and of human beings. Such symptoms may induce lament- able aberrations of development, may destroy initiative, and may interfere with normal and healthy relationships with others. Thus a vicious circle is entered, and the troubles are aggravated. I need merely allude in passing to the occurrence of various bodily symptoms as accompaniments of anxiety-such as sweating, palpitation, blushing, and stammering. When the anxiety overshadows the whole of the mental activities, there ensues a weariness of life, which in this connexion we are certainly entitled to attribute to an incapacity to love. Anxiety is always the outcome of a marked inhibition of life. It will never occur when love runs a free course. Consider the passage in the first epistle of John (iv, 18) : " There is no fear in love ; but perfect love casteth out fear." When there is considerable sexual excitability in the absence of sexual gratification, anxiety is a common sequel. But in young persons anxiety is also frequent (as in the case we have ABNORMALITIES OF THE AFFECTIVE LIFE 287 just been considering) at the onset of sexual maturity in those in whom the normal development of the impulse has been inhibited by antecedent repressions. I think that current speech gives vigorous expression to the relationship between anxiety and the exhibition of impulse, for the root of the word " anxiety " is the Latin verb anger e, to press tightly, to strangle. But no expression is given here to the fact that anxiety is not simply the outcome of mani- fest obstacles to conscious impulses, but arises rather from the subconscious inhibition of impulses of whose nature the sufferer from anxiety is not aware. Nor does it dis- close the fact that when there is some unimportant reason for fear such as would not apparently account for strong emotion, the unconscious may seize the opportu- nity for contributing an extensive supplement of anxiety. As Freud puts it, there is " a floating surplus of anxiety," a potential anxiety, which is ready to show itself whenever a chance is given. An important counterpart to the children affected with anxiety are the sentimental and gushing children, those who pour out their feelings in a douche, as a spendthrift pours out his money ; but the bankruptcy becomes apparent when there is a demand for a definite and useful expression of feeling. The ardour of the feelings gives no clue to their depth and durability. The haulms which grow where the humus is too shallow, sprout more quickly than those that are rooted in good soil. Sentimentalism is invariably a reaction against opposing urges beneath the surface. The poor little wretch who will hang round the neck of a chance visitor, and next morning will greet the same person with coldness or even with hostility, has probably in the meantime been overpowered by repellent tendencies in the unconscious. There are boys and girls who are continually being pulled in this direction or that by the urges of the unconscious. To-day they will be filled with enthusiastic love, and to-morrow will have returned into the desert of unfeelingness. Many of them suffer from the realisation of this, and regard them- selves as false and contemptible beings. But others, who are incapable of genuine love but unconsciously make a 3. Sentimentality. 288 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS parade of their spurious affections, do not take their fate tragically. They enjoy making up to people effusively, and the fact that they disappoint those who have regarded their affection as genuine serves as an agreeable sauce to their activities. We have good reason for regarding sentimentalism as an indication of spurious feelings, but we shall be unjust if we despise the sentimentalists as being themselves false and hypocritical. Apart from the fact that we are concerned here with self-deception and not with a deliberate pretence of non-existent feelings, psychoanalysis will often enable us to relieve the cramping of impulse which has given rise to the sentimentality, so that the sentimentalist is transformed into a vigorous and genuine individual with healthy, durable, and trustworthy affects. Even while the sentimentality persists, we should be gentle in our judgments, for the excessive outpouring of the feelings has its biological value as a partial safeguard against the danger of melancholia. Whilst an inhibition of feeling tends to cause pessimism and to induce weariness of life, exuberance of feeling is the usual substratum of excessive optimism. The optimist projects his superfluity of love into humanity-at-large and into the universe. Boisterousness, again, manifesting itself in a delight in uproarious thoughts and actions, is often a pro- duct of reaction. Behind a forced cheerfulness, the expert will discern the background of melancholy. The passing moment is being lived with a frenzied buoyancy because the dark mood will so soon recur. Even the great humorists of world literature have often been persons of melancholy mood ; we think of Moliere, Fritz Reuter, Busch, Raabe, etc. Akin to this is the persistent smiling of many persons. They find everything " delightful " and " amusing " ; and even when they talk of their troubles, they do so with a smile. But the skilled observer will often see more of their true mood than they would fain disclose. 4. Passivity. There are persons in whom feeling cannot find vent in action. Their feelings are pent up, and fail to secure the natural expression. We have already spoken of the Hamlet attachment (supra p. 186). In the same connexion we ABNORMALITIES OF THE AFFECTIVE LIFE 289 might refer to Werther, who turned away from the realities of life to luxuriate in elegiac moods. Similar types are pessimists, misanthropes, hyperaesthetes and ecstatics, religious enthusiasts whose life centres in the sweet feelings of pious devotion. The more effectively the outlet into action is barred, the higher rises the tide of feeling, until the reservoir of the soul is filled, or there is a catastrophic bursting of the dam. These matters will not now be considered in detail. In the study of the Hamlet attachment it was shown that conflicting urges, such as love and hatred, could mutually interfere with one another so as to prevent action. Reference might also be made to the way in which incompetent teachers will take a child's feelings for hard cash, whereas in life the currency of moral action is alone legal tender ; such teachers will impair their pupils' usefulness, cutting the wings of the impulse towards activity so that the young birds never learn to fly. I might point to decisive experiences, experiences which coloured the whole of life, but which never culminated in action. Suffice it here to say that all neurotics are persons in whom certain elements of love (which is enjoined on us by nature and by the moral law) have been replaced by a lazy or cowardly passivity. This statement applies even to those neurotics who seem obviously filled with an urge towards activity. Those who are affected with this passivity can, just like other neurotics, be guided towards a normal life if sufficient insight and goodwill be forthcoming, and if no organically determined psychosis be present. 5. Moodiness. When the emotional state seems enigmatic, the explana- tion will be found in the unconscious. Rarely in such cases will the analyst fail to detect a stagnation of the love life. Some present stimulus has awakened the memory traces of a previous experience, perhaps one belonging to earliest childhood. But the memory of these happenings has not risen above the threshold of consciousness, and therefore the associated feeling is ascribed to the immediate stimulus. It sometimes happens that a dominant fantasy will symbolically betray the real cause of the enigmatic caprice or mood. A classical instance is furnished by Heine in his 290 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS Loreley. His sadness is accompanied by the obsession of a boatman who is in danger of being lured to death by a beautiful water-sprite. We know that the cousin, whom he vainly loved, represented the Loreley, and that the poet himself was the boatman. This explains the melancholy. Malice, envy, and revengefulness may, just like unhappy love, tinge the consciousness with appropriate feelings of cheerfulness or gloom. Frequent changes of mood in the absence of adequate external cause, or an excessive emo- tional reaction to outward circumstances, are always the sign of extreme inward cramping of the feelings. 6. Delight in Suffering (Masochism). It is certain that in the case of most persons, and perhaps in the case of every one, a pleasurable excitement aroused by the suffering of pain plays a considerable part in development. I have known a number of children who inflicted pain on themselves in pursuit of pleasurable sensations. In most instances, a sexual undertone was obviously present ; and sometimes the maltreatment of the self may have been a definitely sexual act. I knew a boy who would pinch himself with a pair of pincers (supra p. 188), or would bite his own arm severely.1 Another practised asceticism in order to enforce the control of the mind over the body, maltreating himself more and more grossly until the genital organs became the object of his ostensibly moral but really immoral proceedings-and deep contrition ensued. In many cases the love of self-inflicted pain is unconscious both as regards the urge and its results. The subjects may be entirely unaware that the suffering is secretly pleasurable. Numerous hysterical symptoms, including such as are repulsive to consciousness, give pleasure to the unconscious, and are therefore induced with extraordinary cunning, without the conscious being aware of what is going on. Indeed, an unconscious delight in suffering is one of the most notable gains which hysterical patients secure from their illness. The querulous are often artful persons, pouring forth tears and complaints while a crafty fiend grins in the background. As a rule they are boys or girls who have suffered much, * Zulliger reports the case of a schoolboy who pulled out his own hair, and who got his schoolfellows to whip him on the rump. Op. cit., p. 130. ABNORMALITIES OF THE AFFECTIVE LIFE 291 and who now make a fetich of suffering, or inflict a bodily mischief on themselves in order to conceal a mental or moral hurt. Pleasure in pain can extend from the most primitive feelings to the highest. I have analysed children which, with incredible subtlety and unwittingly, have brought chastisement upon themselves, have exposed themselves to accident, or have induced painful symptoms. I have known, too, the more refined masochists who assume the role of sublime martyrs, when by free activity they might have secured for themselves higher moral gains without the aureole of martyrdom. Of course the indirect gains come into consideration in addition to the masochistic pleasure. Gratification is derived from being regarded with sympathy, from being admired for the stoicism with which suffering is endured, from the satisfaction of the deep-rooted need for atonement, and so on. When such a masochist is afflicted with a long series of troubles, he usually throws the blame on fate when in reality his own unconscious is responsible. Important to educationists are the cases in which a child will do wrong in order to be punished and enjoy the sweetness of suffering. Even strong-minded teachers are often fooled by these cunning pleasure-seekers. The development of masochism can be plainly followed throughout the lives of many. Its outcome is usually lamentable. The evil pleasure is frequently paid for by the induction of hatred and anger, by the destruction of the whole career. Woe to the teacher who fans the flames of algolagniac pleasure in his pupils by the infliction of severe punishments. Woe, too, to the teacher who from compassion is led to abate the moral demand, and who allows illness to become a means of cor- ruption whereby a child can evade troublesome duties. Many boys and many girls summon up for themselves the demon of neurosis, a demon that will haunt them throughout life and bring them to destruction. 7. Higher Feelings (Sublimation). Psychoanalysis implies a thoroughly dynamic outlook upon the mental energies. We have frequently had occasion 292 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS to note how the waning of one mental activity is followed by the waxing of another. It is now necessary to show how this happens when the so-called lower feelings are inhibited. Every one knows that the feelings are closely connected with the impulses. What happens when the outlet for the elementary urges is barred ? To Freud we owe the observation which was quite easy to make but which, prior to his day, psychologists had in general overlooked, that the energy animating elementary impulses may in certain circumstances find vent in morbid symptoms, but may under other conditions be used to sustain higher functions. In the latter desirable event, we are not entitled to say that this or that elementary urge has been diverted to higher ends. If, for instance, we are concerned with the sexual impulse (which, according to Freud, side by side with the so-called ego impulse, plays the most important part in the preservation of life), we have no right to say that the sexual impulse has been turned towards art or religion, with the implication that art and religion are merely sexual functions. This would be as crude a view as if we were to say that the work of a Michelangelo is merely to be regarded as a contraction of the muscles of the arm ; or as if, as I myself once phrased it, the performance of Beethoven's violin concerto were to be denominated " a vibration of catgut." What has happened is that the mental energy with which an elementary psychical process is instinct, has now become associated with another sort of activity of the intellect and the will. With the stagnation of the elementary process, other kinds of creative capacity have been released and endowed with feeling, the elementary process simul- taneously losing interest and affective value. This trans- ference is termed sublimation, but only when the department of mental activity to which the energy is transferred is deemed to be of higher value.1 Thus the concept has both psychological and ethical factors. A child that devotes all its energies to eating, drinking, bodily effort, and sexual activity, will have no higher life. > I thus reject the assumption that we aie simply concerned with the diversion of a primitive urge into higher channels. Sublimation always implies the replacement of an elementary function by a higher one, although the exercise of the primary function is not thereby wholly excluded. ABNORMALITIES OF THE AFFECTIVE LIFE 293 Consequently, the exercise of " natural " feeling must be kept within bounds, lest it should choke the higher aptitudes We may often note that children which have at an early age found pleasure in art, nature, friendship, or religion, will turn away from these things as soon as sexual passion arises or a tendency towards alcoholism becomes manifest. When a child suddenly displays a powerful interest in religion, we shall never err in assuming that there is a stagnation in sexuality or love. Even though the devil may play a great part in the matter, anxiety is his mother, and the denial of love his grandmother. Should there arise an irresistible impulse to pray, or to read the Bible or a prayer book ; should some word of Holy Writ or some article of faith arouse anxiety ; or should there be an urge to the meticulous per- formance of some religious ceremony-we are concerned with phenomena comparable to those known in psychopathology as obsessional neuroses. The only difference is, that as long as they are within the bounds of what is approved or pre- scribed by the church, they are not usually denominated morbid ! The factors which decide the channels taken by sublima- tion are of a very complex character. Inborn aptitudes, influences acting from without, and opportunity, cooperate. Certain sublimations provide a fully adequate substitute for the loss of the primary pleasure, without any unfavourable accompaniments. If, however, the sublimation has been enforced by threats or other repressive measures, it is often the starting-point of a morbid process which may sometimes drag dowm the whole personality. Such a lamentable aberration of development is especially apt to occur when sexual lapses are roughly handled by persons who lack psychological understanding. Freud is absolutely right in his contention that many make them- selves ill in the laudable endeavour to overcome a vice. In innumerable instances I have seen neurotic symptoms originate in this way : anxiety, tics convulsifs (spasmodic affections), obsessions and compulsions of all kinds. In the moral sphere there may simultaneously ensue fanaticism, a Pharisaical contempt for persons who resemble the subject's former self, fierce anger directed against trifling offences and even against manifestations which to really pure-minded 294 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS people seem quite unexceptionable (for instance, the nudities of a Rubens). This topic of neurosis as manifested in the domain of religion and morality will be more fully considered at a later stage of our enquiry. Many of these abnormalities serve a hidden end, being intended to act as safeguards against backsliding. One who dreads an error or hates the thought of it, will guard against committing it. Thus the illness plays the part of a prophy- lactic, as Freud was the first to recognise, though others have subsequently claimed the discovery as original. But genuine morality cannot dispense with watchfulness and with a persistent struggle against the undesirable. The dam built by neurosis will often be swept away by a flood, and those who have been sleeping in apparent safety beneath it will be overwhelmed by the waters. History tells of many advocates of a neurotic ethics who failed to recognise the imminence of danger and sustained a terrible fall. Healthy morality and true religion will avoid repression and will renounce the shield of disease. They will consciously defend their freedom, and will control the evil impulses however arduous the struggle. " Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." From this persistent struggle, the most splendid sublimations ensue. A profound truth is embodied in Busch's lines : Aufsteigend muss du dich bemiihen, Doch ohne muhe sinkest du. Der liebe Gott muss immer ziehen, Dem Teufel fallt's von selber zu.1 1 From Schein und Sein (Appearance and Reality). In climbing, you must bestir yourself, For if you do not strive you will go downhill. God must always be drawing you upward; The road to the Devil is effortless. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN ABNORMALITIES OF THE WILL i. Sensory Impulses. Since the feelings are part of the life of impulse, in the previous pages we dealt with that section of them which concerns the development of sensory activity. We showed how, in certain domains of the impulsive life, function may either be inhibited by repression or may be abnormally intensified. We saw that the dynamic and organic method of viewing the subject was correct and that the fulfilment of the individual urges was dependent upon the rest of the psychic life and could only be understood in conjunction with the life as a whole. We have also been reminded of the great significance of inborn aptitudes. Consequently, a deviation from average behaviour (whether the deviation be one of excess or of defect) may depend either upon these endow- ments (direct causes) or upon the fulfilment of other urges (secondary causes). Very remarkable and important cases will be met with in the course of the investigations concerning conjugal love-cases upon which the whole of life's happiness depends. The greater our knowledge of such facts becomes, the oftener shall we be dissatisfied with the easy acceptance of natural predisposition as the only cause. When we come to examine the creative energies, we shall have to take both groups of determinants into consideration -both the inner which are inherited and the outer which are acquired. We shall have, further, to endeavour to make clear the relationship between these determinants and love. 2. Automatism as an Expression of the unconscious Will. When the will cannot carry out its sublimest wishes in a normal and conscious manner, it makes use (among other 295 296 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS means at its disposal) of automatism. As we have seen, dreams, hallucinations, obsessions, and so forth, are utilised by the will automatically in order to achieve its purpose in the intellectual life. We have likewise met with expressions of feeling which may be looked upon as automatism, but may at the same time be regarded as manifestations of the unconscious will. In Chapter Fifteen were briefly considered the bodily movements of a like character, such as spasms, stammerings, twitches, nocturnal incontinence of urine, and somnambulism. The connexion of these with love will subsequently have to be elaborated. 3. Lack of Will-Power. Normal love, when it runs in the proper channels, is apt to supply the most vigorous impulsion to the will; but when love is repressed, inhibition of the will frequently ensues. As I have repeatedly insisted, every neurosis is, from a certain point of view, a substitution of passivity for normal conation. Nevertheless, the most striking defects of will may ensue in persons who cannot be classed among neurotics, and yet cannot be considered healthy in respect of their feelings and of their attitude towards social life. When circumstances demand activity from them, this activity is apt to be arrested, sometimes in its beginnings, sometimes in the middle, and sometimes at the end. The paralysis of the will may be restricted to particular kinds of action, in persons who generally speaking display exceptional energy. Often, however, the infirmity of will affects the whole of the mental life, being then known technically as abulia. For example, the subject has to write a letter which should take only a few minutes, but he cannot make up his mind to the task. He is chided for his remissness, and this arouses great annoyance; ashamed of his negligence, he determines to discharge the duty at once. But he again forgets to write the letter ; for he persuades himself that there is something more urgent to be done (though on subse- quent reflection the urgency of the alternative task is not apparent) ; or, having written the letter, he forgets to post it. An adequate analysis of such cases will invariably show that there is an unconscious reluctance. The reluctance may be conscious as well, but it is always present in the uncon- ABNORMALITIES OF THE WILL 297 scious. In one instance known to me, the cause of the failure to write a necessary letter was that the neglectful corre- spondent had years before lent a trifling sum of money to the person he ought to have written to, and the loan had never been repaid. In another case, the name of the person to whom the letter should have been written recalled that of a girl with whom disagreeable affects were associated in the memory. Hitherto we have been speaking of minor matters, but such difficulties may assume grave proportions. " First steps are difficult," says the adage, and in some children this may have a fateful significance. Many schoolchildren are absolutely unable to make up their minds to begin an essay or a sum which is well within their competence. When such an infirmity of will persistently dominates mental activity, we may be confident that the love life is cramped. The stagnation may spontaneously disappear, but may be a stage on the way to grave mental disorder. Obsessions, anxiety, and other disturbances, are invariably associated with the defect of will, as soon as the cramping of the natural desires has attained a formidable intensity. In other cases, interest lapses when the work is half finished, and the energies are transferred to some other useful and agreeable task. This change may arouse no disturbance. Often, however, the infirmity of will causes distress ; the subject wishes to resume the abandoned work, and urgently endeavours to do so-only to find that attention, thought, and conation fail him. A severe conflict ensues, frequently ending in self-reproach, a sense of inferiority, and a consciousness of weakness. Finally, the dissipation of the voluntary energy may occur at the eleventh hour, when the knot is but half tied. The problem may have been carefully thought over, but the results of the reflection are not committed to paper. Some persons never finish anything, or never finish it in due time. A more important claim (which normal folk would regard as less important) distracts them. Invariably, in such cases, the unconscious is at its tricks. There may be an assimi- lation to the father or the mother. Sometimes, the normal finishing of tasks is rendered impossible by an experience which dominates the mental life. Or, again, the behaviour 298 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS may be the expression of the unconscious thought: " I cannot arrange my affairs, I cannot put things through, because this or that complication stands in the way." Contrasted with the infirm of will are the persons who display an excess of activity and are never at rest. Con- spicuously abnormal is this hypertrophy of the will when it leads to a concentration of effort upon absolute futilities; when it hinders the necessary and desirable concentration of effort; when it involves a dissipation of mental energy. Who does not know the unfortunates who are continually buzzing about and wasting their time upon trifles ; who never have a minute to spare for quiet reflection ; who are always tired and are always complaining of the burden of their occupations, but can never be persuaded to refrain from any of their irritating and purposeless activities. The first stages of this vain fussiness can often be detected in children, and in them it is apt to alternate with inertia. The whole of the western world, as contrasted with the eastern, has been permeated with it since its industrialisation and capitalisation. Strange as the assertion may appear, this excess of function is always the outcome of a defect of function due to repression. Many children seek refuge from their affective poverty in fussy activity. This enables them to avoid brooding upon their unhappy lot, upon their ill-treatment by their parents, upon their incapacity to love their parents. Or the fussy activity helps to drown a feeling of self-reproach or a sense of wrongdoing ; to obscure the thought, " No one cares for me, and my existence is worthless." Thus the morbid and fussy activity becomes a cloak for the lack of love ; just as conversely, a healthy application of the will entitles us to infer that love is healthy. In the former case there often arises a condition of obsessional neurosis, which neither good resolutions nor direct interference from without can dispel. 4. Fussy Activity. When discussing the life of feeling, we referred to the pleasure aroused by self-torment and by the pain suffered at others' hands. The active counterpart of this is the 5. Delight in inflicting Pain (Sadism). ABNORMALITIES OF THE WILL 299 enjoyment of inflicting pain on others-human beings or animals. Sometimes, a kindred tendency finds expression in the injury or destruction of inanimate objects. The origin of this antisocial behaviour is still obscure. It remains uncertain whether we have to do with a primary and irre- ducible instinct, or whether psychical determinants are operative in every case. I am myself inclined to believe that sadism is an acquired rather than a congenital manifestation. The sadist is generally one who has been ill-treated, and who wishes to turn the tables. The quarry plays the part of hunter. In other cases, the malevolence inspired by a human being is discharged upon an animal (supra p. 214). Freud has shown, and his discovery has repeatedly been confirmed, that the active delight in inflicting pain is almost always associated with the passive delight in suffering pain. The sadist is one in whom the former delight, the masochist is one in whom the latter delight, predominates. Sadism often develops in such a way that mental maltreatment takes the place of physical. Instead of whipping, pinching, or stone-throwing, there is a no less cruel derision, calum- niation, and the like. It is especially unfortunate when the choice of an occupation is determined by this impulsive trend. Woe to the pupils, soldiers, the clerks, the factory employees, and all those who are subordinate to a sadist- and sadism is by no means rare among persons in authority. Woe to the wife or husband, to children or to parents, who are persecuted by sadistic relatives. There are boys and girls who are content to ruin their own lives simply in order to make their parents unhappy. Let me again insist on the fact that a sexual undertone is never lacking to well-marked sadistic pleasure. 6. The Allotment of Energy to higher Functions (Sublimation). We have learned that it is erroneous to suppose that any particular effort can be the outcome of an impulse and nothing else. The movements of the arm are not self-deter- mined, nor is the activity of an impulse. This word " impulse " is merely a collective name for the totality of kindred conations. Invariably the mind as a whole, the vital impetus as a whole, finds expression in an impulse. 300 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS The same vital impetus which at one moment is directed to satisfying a primary need for food, may be devoted a few minutes later to the solution of a philosophical problem. We learned in the preceding chapter that the derivation of vital impetus into higher channels (sublimation) occurred only when the movement in the primary channels was sub- jected to interference : either by obstacles imposed from without; or (though this is often overlooked) by hindrances from within, such as satiety due to excessive indulgence of a primary urge. The higher mental functioning is often so pleasurable that one can almost imagine it to exercise an attractive force. Beyond question, the change to a higher moral functioning must not be regarded as an unnatural one, or as forcibly imposed from without; it is the exercise of functions which are, to say the least, just as appropriate to human nature as the elementary biological activities of breathing, eating, etc. It often becomes apparent in the course of psychoanalysis that an arrest upon the lower plane must be regarded as morbid ; that abnormal processes have hindered the natural ascent, or have occasioned a backsliding into the world of the primitive.1 1 The fact that the higher function does not become active until hindrances to the primary function have been at work, has led many moralists to take a dualistic view of human nature. Such writers, and among them quite recently Hiiberlin, have failed to undertake an accurate study of the relation- ships between the two spheres. Instead of examining the psychological process of sublimation, and instead of ascertaining how the moral impulses manifest themselves as categorical demands making a claim to absolute validity (even though the futility of any such claim is obvious), they have sought refuge in metaphysics and have been content to regard this higher imperative as a sort of incarnation of the Logos. Had they but taken the trouble to throw light on the origin of the psychological determinants of such a claim (which, self-evident as it may seem, is often fallacious and utterly unjustified), they would have saved themselves from the irrefutable criticisms which for more than half a century have been directed against such Kantianism-criticisms which must be ignored by those who hope to maintain the fiction of a reputedly supranatural so-called " normal functioning." Of course, no one would dream of trying to explain the demands of morality in terms of primitive natural impulses. Yet Hkberlin is never weary of reiterating that this is the psychoanalytical outlook, and it is regrettable that he should do so in view of the explicit statements of Freud and the latter's pupils. So many opponents of psychoanalysis have contemptuously declared that Freud proposes to explain the whole of mental life as a manifesta- tion of sexuality, and Haberlin ought to avoid even the semblance of justifying such onslaughts. It is possible to advocate an ethic which is fully as water- tight as Haberlin's both psychologically and philosophically, without putting forward a mere rechauflte of Kant's critique of the practical reason. I myself adopt the standpoint of ethical idealism, and yet I am decisively opposed to the notion that we ought to accept Kant's anaemic and rigidly repressive ethical system as a model. (Cf. my essay Psychoanalyse und Weltanschauung, ABNORMALITIES OF THE WILL 301 I will give a few examples to show some of the aspects of sublimation. A sixteen-year-old girl, who had had the habit of masturbating for a long time and who had been cautioned against it, was accustomed to tear the skin from her thumb. Every means to make her desist proved vain. Her irresistible impulse symbolised her longing for a husband. At last she was cured of the habit, but immediately began to devour raw carrots as if she were famished. The new impulse proved that she had not yet freed herself of the cramping influence. One symbol had been merely replaced by another. While the struggle with this new and aimless activity was still being carried on, she was taken to a violin recital and was seized with the ardent desire to learn the violin. The desire was accompanied by a strange feeling of pleasure. At the very outset she said, her face suffused with an expression of ecstasy, that one could put so much into violin playing. When her father was buying her a fiddle, the child began once more (though she had not done so for a long while) to pick at the skin of her thumb, thus proving in the clearest manner the close relationship between the artistic desire and the obsessional neurosis. But the thumb- picking ceased. Since there was a danger of dissociation, the child was informed as to the meaning of her musical passion. From an educational point of view this was a false step. The child immediately lost her passion for the violin, but turned all the more eagerly to the study of the pianoforte, in which she was eminently successful, and she renounced the neurotic activities which had symbolically substituted mas- turbation. She had at the same time become deeply religious. Thus the girl was able to discontinue the practice of repression and the use of a symbolical obsessional sub- stitute. Instead she governed her lower desires and allowed their place to be taken by artistic and religious exercises.1 in Zum Kampf um die Psychoanalyse, pp. 291-382; also supra pp. 46-50). I wish to insist most emphatically that I regard the aptitude for moral thought and life as one of the primary and germinal attributes of human nature. Nor do I discountenance a certain measure of dualism, in so far as there is an opposition between the primary impulses and the sublimations. But we must not exaggerate this dualism ; we must not lapse into metaphysics. Every careful analysis discloses that primary functions are invariable factors in sublimation. The exclusion (repression) of the primary, is very apt to lead to an atrophy or destruction of the sublimation. We have seen this more than once in the present volume (supra pp. 246 et seq.). 1 Cf. Die psychanalytische Methode, p. 180. 302 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS Boys and girls who, perhaps under the influence of a threat, have given up a vice, will always seek for some higher equivalent. Sometimes it will be sport, sometimes a love of nature or a delight in art, sometimes it will be friendship or an interest in social questions, or it may be religion. Any of these interests may replace the primitive and immoral activity which the young person has renounced. Under favourable conditions, to witness such a change of activity is one of the finest joys which a teacher can experience. The whole of our personal culture and social civilisation rests upon such new directions of impulse. In order that the best result may be obtained, a very definite psychological environment must be provided. We shall have to deal with this presently. Often an abortive sublimation takes place in which all the energies previously devoted to less worthy or even bad activities have been thrown into a sublime endeavour, and yet no comprehensive solution of the urge has taken place. On the contrary, a neurosis may develop which, on the one hand, may mar the achievements of the sublimation and indue it with a neurotic character, and on the other hand may conjure up all kinds of morbid symptoms. A lad of sixteen had often been greatly excited by inspectionist play with girls and by obscene pictures. One day, during religious instruction, he heard talk of sins of sight. He was seized with deep anxiety, was overwhelmed with a sense of guilt, and vowed that never again would he look at unworthy things. He kept his promise ; but he developed an over-enthusiastic love for Jesus, and at the same time acquired anxiety symptoms, writer's cramp, and fetichistic devotion to women's dress. He became indifferent to the female body, but his interest was passionately trans- ferred to female apparel. He bought fashion papers with his pocket money. At night he would row on the lake and would have hallucinations in the form of water-sprites which would glide around the boat ; but he was only interested in the veils they wore. Even his choice of a profession was influenced by his passion for women's clothes. If, in a crush, he happened to touch a feminine form, he was forthwith bathed in perspiration ; and yet a genuine love was denied him. Hence, this boy (whose family history was a bad one) ABNORMALITIES OF THE WILL 303 had his life embittered and his moral efficiency impaired by a too narrow-minded inculcation of religious precepts.1 7. A Lapse into lower Functions (Desublimation). The foregoing examples will have shown that we cannot be content to approach the problem of sublimation with good intentions only ; we need, in addition, sound common sense and psychological insight. The moral life suffers a loss when neurotic ailments supervene, for every neurosis is the expression of a tendency to immorality ; it is the replacement of moral endeavour, which the higher nature and the con- science demand, by a reprehensible passivity. There are, however, other ways in which the sublimation may go awry. The repressed impulses may find such an explosive outlet that desublimation may ensue. A boy who has been brought up too strictly and who for years has submitted to the parental authority with smouldering rage, will suddenly one day break his chains and hurl himself into the wildest activities, unsavoury adventures with women, bohemianism of the most dissolute sort. He breaks down all the bridges behind him and delights to think, when his wretchedness torments him, that his parents are suffering even severer pangs. This reaction against excessive repression-a reaction which unsuspecting parents often bring about despite the best intentions in the world-must be carefully distinguished from the desublimations which do not result from the forcible snapping of the bonds of repression. When desublimation occurs as a protest against unduly stringent repression, it takes an explosive form, whereas otherwise it is gradual. In the former case it is a defiance ; in the latter, it is a free backsliding to a lower level. In the explosive form of sublimation, the lasciviousness is the expression of a stirring of hatred and an impulse towards flight ; it does not reflect the real nature of the person concerned. The anger and the defiance which accompany the immoral activity and set themselves up in opposition to any fresh attempt at sub- limation, disclose that the genuine aptitudes and the conduct which would enjoy inward approval are of a very different kind. The gradual backslider, on the other hand, usually 1 Cf. Die psychanalytische Methode, p. 281. 304 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS feels at harmony with himself. He suffers from a deficiency of moral love, whereas the sufferer from explosive desub- limation has an excess of misguided and repressed love. From among the innumerable complications which may affect the course of love in the immature, we have selected for consideration a few which are of especial importance for the knowledge of human nature and for the guidance of education. Our canon of selection has been somewhat arbitrary. But any attempt at a complete exposition would certainly try the reader's patience too far. 8. Irresistible Impulses. Little regarded as signs of the inner complications that frequently affect love in children, but none the less extremely important, are the infinitely manifold and apparently unmeaning habits which show themselves partly as tastes and partly as compulsions. The rituals attendant upon the simple act of walking are almost incredibly numerous. Some will walk only on the edge of the pavement, and others avoid it. A great many children will not step on the dividing line between two paving stones ; others always tread on these lines, even though they have to change step in order to do so ; and some alternate between one practice and the other. Often those thus affected are unaware that they are acting on irresistible impulse ; they find it out only when they try to break the habit. There is no reason for the practice in the conscious ; or if a reason be alleged, it is manifestly false. Some tread upon each paving stone twice, three times, or four times, as the case may be. Many touch the wall of adjoining houses at every other step ; others will touch the main posts of the railing as they pass ; others, as they walk, count their paces up to a certain number, and then begin over again.1 In the numerous instances that have come under my notice, these actions were always the outcome of the symbolic elaboration of a moral conflict. An example will be considered in Chapter Twenty-one, 1, (&). Here is an instance which is not directly connected with the love sentiment. A boy of ten is unable to tread upon « Cf. Die psychanalytische Methode, p. 323. Various compulsive symptoms of a similar kind concerning the intellectual and the affective life have already been discussed. ABNORMALITIES OF THE WILL 305 the line between the paving stones. He likewise avoids treading on a stone beneath which a rainwater pipe runs. Just before this compulsion manifested itself, he had stolen some iron braces intended for use on the railway line, and had sold them for twenty centimes. He had also thrown a toad into one of the rainwater pipes, and his conscience had troubled him with the idea that the animal would starve to death. He was afraid that what he had done would be found out. After the two compulsions had lasted for a considerable time, he threw twenty centimes into the rain- water pipe, and was thereupon freed from the incubus. Only the inability to tread upon the line between two paving stones would seem to have been a morbid compulsion ; the other inability was probably a conscious derivative. I shall now give the example of a neurotic who, owing to distressing experiences during boyhood (experiences sub- sequently to be described) was affected with a morbid tendency to mind-wandering and with many other neurotic symptoms. He could not enter into healthy relationships with his fellows, and he suffered from an intense feeling of nullity. His attacks of depression were often quite alarming. On one occasion he wrote : " I feel utterly depressed, cast down, and quite unable to do the work which I ought to do and want to do. ... I keep on thinking that it is all up with me. I cannot escape this thought. I am a lost man. The cleverest of doctors will be unable to bring help to my degenerate and crippled spirit." He had a fierce hatred of persons in authority, being especially embittered against his father, but detesting also priests and the Catholic church. In his inability for action, he was the image of Hamlet. During the first years at school, and subsequently from time to time, he had a dream which caused him great anxiety. This anxiety would persist into the waking hours, especially when his parents were quarrelling with one another. The dream was of two masses of cloud which clashed violently together ; the dreamer espoused the cause of the smaller of these two masses, but only in his mind, not actively. Up to the age of sixteen-apart from trifling anxiety symptoms, striking lapses of memory, a great dread of his father, and undue passivity-his development was fairly 306 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS normal. When he was a young factory hand, he learned to masturbate, but soon vigorously repressed the practice. Thereupon, uncontrollable sexual fantasies promptly set in. His powers of work, which had hitherto been excellent, immediately vanished. If he read a novel in which a per- fectly decorous meeting between two young people was described, his fancy would paint the scene as something very different, as one in which improprieties had taken place. Overmastered by such impressions, he would be forced to give up reading the story. Similar lascivious thoughts interfered with other activities, despite all he could do. When, at the age of eighteen, he entered a middle school, these hateful obsessions had disappeared, to be replaced by fixed ideas of a contrasted character, for now his thoughts were dominated by pictures of " strictly pure and moral love relationships." Then the monetary wealth of the fictitious characters came to play a more and more important part. The day-dreamer now proceeded to fill great island countries with palaces and splendid towns, the glories of whose archi- tecture were to outdo the best examples from Greece, China, and medieval Germany. The inhabitants were to be indif- ferent in religious matters, and in especial they were to reject the papal supremacy. Still later, when he was showing himself quite incompetent for the tasks of actual life, in imagination he would assume the role of a great benefactor, who showered gifts upon an impoverished neighbourhood, but did not forget to build for himself a magnificent castle with a gorgeous chapel. After the first brief beginnings of an analysis, when the will-to-love had been reawakened, in his day-dreams he became an officer who had led the royalist movement from defeat to victory, and thereby won the hand of a nobleman's daughter, who offered herself to him in marriage. In his love fantasies, he always played the passive part, just as in life he was ever a Hamlet. These fantasies, too, vanished after a few years, but only to be replaced by a passion for brooding which was just as burdensome and just as incompatible with persistent work. He was not freed from his obsessions until the fantasy of the cloud-masses, the first dream he could remember, had been analysed. It was manifest that the love life of this patient had been forced into abnormal channels, and that this had ABNORMALITIES OF THE WILL 307 impaired the healthy relationship to reality. Imaginary life had to supply a substitute for real life. The day-dreams were overloaded with feeling because the sexual impulse, whose normal expression was inhibited, poured its energy into the imaginary fulfilments of the love urges. One from under whose feet the ground of reality has been cut, creates a world for himself in accordance with the egoistic wishes of his own heart. But this biologically indispensable exercise of creative fancy has to be paid for by a correspondingly great distress of mind when the return to reality tears away the veil of illusion, and the utter futility of the fancied idol becomes apparent. Fixed affects and irresistible impulses are built upon the same foundation as fixed ideas. It is criminal folly to punish children for offences which are the outcome of irresistible impulse-but the folly is one which many teachers commit. In most cases, such punishment is useless. When it does seem to do any good, we find on closer examination that the unsolved conflict has induced other and yet more dangerous symptoms, and has as a rule occasioned a hatred for the maladroit teacher. In the latter part of this work we shall learn how such crampings of impulse ought to be treated. Enough here to point out that eccentricities and aberrations, even when from the medical point of view they are not designated morbid, are produced in the same way as patho- logical defects of character. Obstinacy, love for fault-finding, hot temper, ambition (which is always a reaction against feelings of inferiority), a craze for work (especially when it leads nowhere), a passion for gambling, Don Juanism-these and a hundred other impulsive trends, may all be the outcome of obsessional neurosis. Certain theoretical considerations may be appended. When the free development of love and of the mind is hampered, the love urge turns with excess of energy towards such outlets as remain open. In this way, various normal functions may be overstressed, and assume an importance which is not natural to them. Again, certain aptitudes of the intellect, the emotions, or the will, intrinsically meaning- less or unimportant, may acquire exaggerated emphasis. When we say " unimportant," we are judging from the out- 308 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS look of intellectualist psychology. The study of unconscious mentation shows that no expenditure of feeling can be regarded as the work of chance, or as dependent upon some caprice of the nervous system ; it is determined by definite antecedents, and has an important biological function to fulfil. The reader must understand that we are concerned with urges of notable value which are unable to find free issue in the primarily intended direction, and which cannot simply be bottled up within the brain-box. The vast impulsive forces which inhere in " unmeaning " but irresistible impulses, are the outcome of the energy which was proper to the primary impulses. When there is no fixation beneath the threshold, this energy can be freely directed towards a new goal should the first aim be unsuccessful. But where there is unconscious fixation, no such rectification of aim is possible. The conscious will can make no headway against the fixed idea, the fixed affect, or the neurotic impulse ; for the coercive force lies hidden in the unconscious, where it is withdrawn from the influence of the conscious self. The unconscious urge is like a revolutionist working underground, and from his safe retreat exercising his influence only through messages in cypher or by the use of symbolic signs. The analogy with the methods of the vehmgericht and other secret societies is obvious. In actual fact, the origin of these bodies resembles that of the irresistible impulses of neurotic patients. I regard it as eminently desirable that all who are interested in the psychology of childhood and youth, and indeed all serious students of psychology, should come to realise the enormous importance of obsessions and irresistible impulses due to repression. Terrible mistakes will be avoided if people learn to recognise how far-reaching and powerful such influences are. PART TWO FORMATIVE FORCES AND EXPERIENCES INTRODUCTORY In Part One we have examined numerous phases in the development of love in children. Wherever possible I have allowed facts to speak for themselves, though in many places I have found it expedient to point out causal relationships. There is no such thing as " pure experience " ; that is to say, perceptions in which there is no element of presupposition cannot occur. It is impossible to give all the relevant facts, be they important or be they otherwise, in the history of an individual's development; and in making our selection it is very difficult for us, with the best will in the world, to abstain from being guided by certain assumptions as to causal relationships. We have now to test these assumed relationships some- what more precisely. What we wish to know is, which are the factors impelling and guiding the love development of the child, and according to what laws and in what manner the development takes place. Without a knowledge of causes, there can be no true understanding. This interest underlies Part Two of the present work. But we have forthwith to reckon with a great difficulty. The material at our hands, on which we have to build up our theory, and which is to enlighten us in a trustworthy manner as to the laws of psychic activity, is vast in its comprehensiveness. Now though I have an immense col- lection of data to work upon, this is by no means sufficient to satisfy the demands of scientific investigation. I am, therefore, constrained to refer the reader to those books which will throw a further light upon the matter. I would recommend in especial a study of Freud's works. But the greater part of the things which lead the psychoanalyst to his conclusions is not to be found in the written word at all. Nor is this necessary. A reader who is cautious, critical, and in a position to form judgments for himself, must depend 311 312 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS upon the only authority which is ultimately decisive- personal observation and experiment. It will by now have become clear that the peculiarities of the child's love life cannot be considered apart from its life as a whole. There is hardly an experience to be met with which does not in some way influence love. An adequate study of the psychology of love would have to comprise the entire psychology of childhood. As a matter of fact we find ourselves constantly having to fall back upon the general psychology of childhood, and to presuppose a knowledge of that subject. Unfortunately, those branches of the science which could furnish us with the finest fruits have hitherto been debarred from the light of psychological interest or from scientific investigation, so that they have got no farther than the most meagre of statements and have scarce borne the smallest of flowers. CHAPTER NINETEEN GENERAL ASPECTS OF THE FORMATIVE ACTIVITIES i. Formative Influences where there is no Repression. Hitherto we have been considering only those modifications of the mental life which consist of greater or lesser stirrings of consciousness. These impressions disappear from con- sciousness. They are forgotten, but certain memory traces or dispositions remain. These influence our thoughts, feelings, and resolves ; and in certain circumstances they are revived as memories. Such influences have, of course, a powerful formative force. A word of exhortation or consolation or encouragement, a censure, or a jesting observation, may follow a child as a seagull follows a steamship, vanishing for a time and then returning into the wake once more, perching for a while and then taking to wing again. Unexpectedly, at a decisive moment, something that has been said will be revived in the child's mind to play the part of trusty friend, to be a guardian angel or a tempter, a defending or a prosecuting counsel. An injustice, a maltreatment, a per- manent lack, a mishap, may have enduring influence upon the development of love in a child, while continuing to operate within the realm of consciousness and the storehouse of the conscious memory. These processes are of extreme importance ; but as far as the purposes of this work are concerned they may be dismissed with the remark that- incredible as it may seem-most academic psychologists continue to cherish the naive opinion that what has been forgotten has ceased to exercise any influence. 2. The Moulding of Love in Children where Repression is at Work. (a) Repression. In the foregoing expositions it has repeatedly been necessary co speak of repression, understanding by this the 313 314 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS removal of certain thoughts, feelings, and voluntary impulses from the domain of consciousness, the thrusting of them down into the unconscious. This process of repression must now be considered more closely. But how can I describe a process which, from its very nature, eludes observation ? If I have recourse to similes, I shall be accused of a crude simplicity. If I take refuge in silence, I shall be charged with obscurity. Let me make it clear, then, that since unconscious mental processes are invisible they cannot be described like a picture play, and that psychology in general (not analytical psychology alone) continually fails to satisfy our craving for knowledge. For instance, what happens to an idea when it is forgotten and subsequently recalled ? Wundt and others criticise the assumption that during the interval between the impression and its revival the idea is " stored up in the memory." Certainly, though the phrase is vivid in its imagery, no one can form any notion of its real content. But Wundt does not make the matter any clearer when he insists that what remains is merely a " memory disposition." What is a mental idea-disposition ? Or if we suppose that the memory trace exists only in the physical world, what are we to imagine its nature to be-and how can the memory be recalled if, as Wundt declares, there is no interaction between body and mind ? Our knowledge is fragmentary. No one knows exactly how it comes to pass that when a moving billiard ball strikes a stationary one, the latter is set in motion. It would be fatal to psychoanalysis were we, instead of limiting ourselves to the most essential theoretical concepts and assumptions, to wander off at this stage into the field of philosophical fundamentals. Enough, therefore, to deal with the facts, and to explain them as simply as possible. When we study the development of love in children, we speedily notice, following in Freud's footsteps, that we have to reckon with something more than inborn aptitudes, dispositions, and conscious processes. We perceive that other forces, beneath the threshold of consciousness, must contribute to the result. It is as when we watch a river. A swirl upon the surface indicates sunken rocks ; when the water rises, we know that there must have been an accession ASPECTS OF THE FORMATIVE ACTIVITIES 315 from hidden sources. If lower down the stream we find sulphur in the water when there is none nearer the source, and if we have ample evidence that no sulphur has been introduced from above, we are justified in concluding that there is a sulphurous spring in the bed of the river. We have learned from numerous examples that the love life is strongly influenced by unconscious determinants, which have no connexion either with inborn aptitudes or with the stock of ordinary conscious memories. The girl mentioned on p. 139 who had a distressing presentiment of the imminent death of her father (a perfectly healthy man), did not know the origin of this obsession, and her reason assured her that the dread was unfounded. Conscious memory could provide no explanation of the haunting thought, but psychoanalysis was competent to do so. Often enough, indeed, the reasons for our likes or dislikes are disclosed plainly enough by memory. A child will detest the teacher who has punished it unjustly, has derided it harshly, and so on. It will love its aunt, who has given it a number of Christmas presents. But in innumerable instances no such logical connexion can be disclosed, and the direct interrogation of memory is fruitless. Prior to the use of the psychoanalytical method, these cases remained enigmatic. Psychoanalysis has shown that when such enigmatic influences, proceeding from a hidden sphere of the mind, make themselves felt in the working of the conscious life, a psychical conflict has been the invariable antecedent. A distressing idea has been thrust out of consciousness. In the case just mentioned this was a wish for the father's death. Careful examination has shown that we are often concerned with thoughts which conscience rejects as detest- able, and that in any case the ideas thus thrust out of con- sciousness are distressing ones. The evil or painful thought is not simply forgotten, as we forget the number of a house or the name of a shopkeeper to whom we are entirely indifferent; it is actively expelled from consciousness, even though it be something of great importance, so that the act of forgetfulness may arouse surprise. The mother whose case was recorded on p. 128 who was continually fussing about her children's health and over- 316 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS whelming them with hygienic precautions, was unable to call up the memory of their faces when they were not actually present. When we know that the obsession which led her to take exaggerated precautions for their health was the outcome of a repressed wish for their death, of an uncon- scious hatred, the remarkable failure of visualising power no longer seems so astonishing, even though we have not ascer- tained why the secret detestation worked itself out precisely in the way described. Repressed ideas behave like a mouse which, having been scared by a cat, will no longer come out by the same hole even after the cat has gone away ; or like a commercial traveller who has been roughly shown the door, and will no longer venture to call at this place of business, even when the discourteous manager has been replaced by another. The mouse in the darkness of its hole, and the commercial traveller in the street, do not indeed know that the enemy has gone away. Similes apart, when the idea has been repressed it is no longer in open connexion with the processes of the conscious mind ; its relationship with the conscious mind is an extremely obscure one which has only been elucidated by psychoanalysis. If, for example, a child's affectionate advances have been frequently and harshly repelled, the affectionate impulse no longer displays itself, lest the unpleasant experience should be repeated. The need for affection, now that the hope of gratification has been lost, is hidden, and is not felt any more. It may be repressed for the whole of the remainder of life. Educationists must carefully distinguish between control and repression. When control is at work, the wish that is controlled is still in the domain of consciousness. If a boy masters his thirst at the drinking fountain, this is the exercise of control, an assertion of freedom as against the urge to drink. But when an impulse is repressed, there has been put upon it a bridle which the consciousness cannot directly remove. Let us suppose that a boy runs up to his father, who is engaged upon some important task. He wishes to tell his father something, but is brusquely told not to interrupt! The result will vary according to the child's temperament and previous history. The boy may say to himself : " Of ASPECTS OF THE FORMATIVE ACTIVITIES 317 course I ought not to have disturbed Father, he is busy now " ; and perhaps the same evening, when his father is free, he will seize his opportunity. In another case, the boy may receive a shock, and may think : " My father does not care for me ! " In certain circumstances, as when such experiences have occurred again and again, the impulse to pour out the heart and the disposition to show affection may be checked. The boy becomes cold, and shuts himself away from his father. Subsequently, when the father perhaps solicits the child's affection, when the boy even says to himself that he ought to be affectionate to his father, it proves to be impossible to manifest any affection, in spite of the child's best wishes. In the first instance, we speak of control, for there is no repression even when the little scene has been forgotten. In the second instance, repression has been at work, and the affectionate wish that prompted the advances has been submerged in the unconscious. In repression, therefore, we are not simply concerned with the thrusting out of certain thoughts or feelings which are expunged from consciousness despite, or precisely on account of, their value ; at the same time there is a cramping of impulse. Psychoanalysis is entirely on the side of voluntary psychology, for it recognises everywhere the predominance of the voluntary life. Whether we have to do with the repression of ideas, feelings, or conations, it is always the vital impetus which is decisive as to being or not-being. This does not imply that all mental energy belongs to the voluntary life. For example, the mental energy underlying ordinary perception can by no means be resolved into mere conations. Whereas traditional psychology regarded as negligible everything that disappeared from memory, holding that, as time passed, the influence of what had been forgotten declined to vanishing point, Freud has proved that the unconscious retains with incredible tenacity whatever has been assigned to it by the process of repression. The " forgotten " is stored in a cellar in which much moulders away, and from which much is removed by pilfering fingers ; but the " repressed " is kept in a burglar-proof safe. The tooth of time cannot touch it, and the most powerful energies of the will are powerless against it. Psychoanalysis alone possesses the key which can unlock the safe 318 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS (6) Reactions of the repressed Material (the Manifestatio ns). Let us return for a moment to the simile of the mouse which has been chased back into its hole. If the little beast does not venture out into the open at this spot, either because the cat is watching the hole, or because the mouse is afraid that its enemy may be there, the mouse cannot for that reason renounce its will-to-live. What does it do ? It gnaws its way into the next room, making a noise while doing so which may be extremely disturbing ; and, having pierced a new outlet, it rummages the odorous treasures of the dining-room or the cellar. Again, to turn back to our other simile, the pushing commercial traveller will seek custom from another firm ; or perhaps, having grown a beard and put on a new suit, he will seize a favourable opportunity to return to the original place, maybe adopting a fresh patter in the hope that his identity will be overlooked. Thus it is that the impulse which has been repressed because of its painful associations and which can no longer manifest itself freely and openly, cunningly seeks an outlet by indirect means, and where it will not be recognised. Amazing are the artfulness and energy displayed by such repressed impulses. In its talent for disguise, the unconscious will outdo the most gifted impersonator or the most cunning of criminals. Let those who are still ignorant of the creative power of mind, and those who are still dominated by the old associationist psychology, study the psychology of unconscious mentation. We may remind the incredulous that similar methods are employed within the sphere of conscious mentality. Those who cannot venture to say something openly will say it indirectly. Sometimes they make use of allusion ; some- times of simile ; or they employ a sparkling innuendo ; they may have recourse to irony or caricature ; or the meaning may be conveyed in an anagram, a rebus, or the like. Without laying too much stress upon the proposed classification, I may suggest that the devious ways in which the unconscious thus finds expression may be grouped under two heads, those respectively in which there is and is not distortion of the tendency in question ASPECTS OF THE FORMATIVE ACTIVITIES 319 In the latter case, the unconscious sets to work in such a way that either the ideational content or the associated affect is wholly or partially concealed. The suppression of the ideational content may occur in connexion either with perception or with reproduction. Let us suppose that we fail to acknowledge the greeting of an acquaintance (as in the case instanced on p. 266). Perhaps we are astonished at our own remissness, but discover on cudgelling our brain that the acquaintance arouses unpleasant memories, that we have failed to discharge an obligation towards him, and so on. Here is an example. From time to time a boy had lancinating pains in the head. Close examination showed that this happened when he was thinking unlovingly of his father. The analysis proved that the original cause of the lancinating pains had been a chastisement inflicted by the hot-tempered father, who had struck the lad on this very part of the head. The boy, who was filled with an urge to hate, did not recall the whole scene of the punishment; all that remained in his memory was the important characteristic of the pain, but this was divorced from the rest of the experi- ence, so that its significance was no longer obvious. The fact of the punishment had been so distressing that it had been repressed ; the boy did not wish to think of it, and that was why the whole setting was no longer reproduced in memory. But the unconscious was able to arouse the memory of the physical pain, while allowing the far more distressing moral pain to slumber in the depths. The example shows how stupidity is associated with cunning, and the same remarkable combination may be observed in many insects. We are often at a loss whether to be more amazed at the sagacity or the folly of the unconscious. Thus it happens on countless occasions that an experience which in one way or another bears on the present situation is unconsciously recalled in dreams, the choice of words, or the symptoms of disease. The child's life is continually being influenced by the past; and the aim of psychoanalysis is, whenever necessary, to ascertain these determinants, so that they may be deprived of their power for evil. It will be shown later that the study of case histories from this outlook is both essential and practicable. In many instances, however, what rises into consciousness 320 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS is not the memory but the associated affect, assuming a morbid form. The girl, whose case was recorded on pp. 259 et seq., always suffered from profound melancholy when, in social life, any reference was made to love affairs ; and, once, the same melancholy ensued when a blue-eyed boy entered the room. A few years earlier she herself had had a love affair, which had been forcibly broken off by her mother. This experience was revived whenever her schoolfellows spoke of love, but the associated affect could alone rise above the threshold of consciousness. Even the blue eyes of the boy who entered the room failed to arouse the conscious memory of her sometime lover. A special variety of these tricks of the unconscious consists of the pseudo-reminiscence or feeling of false recognition (the concepts are not perfectly identical, but the distinction is not relevant to the present enquiry). When some new experience is taking place, we suddenly feel that we have been through it all before. In many instances a sense of the uncanny is associated with this state of mind, especially when we know that we cannot possibly have seen before what we are now seeing, or have experienced what we are now experiencing. Invariably, in such cases, the extant conditions have aroused the reminiscence of some distressing past experience, of which we should become fully conscious were it not that a minion of the unconscious is guarding the portal of consciousness. Since the memory cannot be fully revived, we have the sense of pseudo-reminiscence or false recognition. The feeling of acquaintanceship is transferred from the intellectual content to which it properly belongs, and becomes attached to something with which it has a merely superficial connexion. Thus we are saved from remembering a mishap we have sustained or an injustice we have suffered.1 More frequent, and constituting an unending series of richly symbolical forms, are the manifestations in which there is not only a withholding but also a distortion. Sometimes the intellectual content, sometimes the affective element, is masked. In the former case the deceit is so cunningly enacted that various ideas, which have really nothing in 1 Cf. Freud, Zur Psychopathologie des Alltagslebens, sixth edition, 1919. pp. 296 et seq. ; Pfister, Die psychanalytische Methode, pp. 191 et seq. ASPECTS OF THE FORMATIVE ACTIVITIES 321 common, are mosaicked together to form a whole. We may dream of, or imagine we see, a totally unknown, perhaps even a ridiculous, face ; upon nearer scrutiny we find that the features resemble those of different people of our acquaintance. Every one of these personalities, which are so enigmatically compounded, has an important relationship to our present condition. They all combine to give expression to a wish of our unconscious self. The conscious does not understand the result of such a welding together of incongruities. For instance, the expressionist does not understand the things he throws upon his canvas ; the child does not know what the ghost of which he has dreamt may betoken. It is only in the course of analysis that the details are recognised, and that the meaning, origin, and purpose of the vision are penetrated. Such a welding together has been named by Freud " condensa- tion." The distortion may be effected in such a way that one of the characteristics of the composite is grossly exaggerated. The manifestation is then a caricature ; but the hypertrophy of certain features may go so far as to leave the subject incapable of grasping the significance of the phenomenon. A lady constantly dreamed of a wicked Mongol ; only during the analysis did she recognise that her husband was symbolised in this figure. She often quarrelled with her husband and a little peculiarity in the set of his eyes had thus been greatly exaggerated. Again, certain attributes will be charged into their oppo- sites. In the dream, or in the waking fancy, a tall, graceful person will become a dwarf ; the father will be seen as a woman in an apron. This procedure corresponds to ordinary irony ; and, as with irony in general, no traits are lacking which are suitable to the ironical character. The ludicrous setting gives the key to the secret mockery. We have, further, to do with symbolisation, Whether this term, with the meaning which Freud attaches to it in his psychology of the unconscious, is historically justified and happily chosen, is a matter of indifference to me so long as no one has succeeded in finding a better one. What occurs is the representation, not of a general idea, but of a concrete object, or certain features or actions of that object, by another object or by another action which brings into 322 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS sharp relief some salient characteristics of the primary object. A strong, energetic father may appear as a lion ; if he is vacillating he may be depicted as a shattered tower or as a rocking-horse ; a mother, when the dreamer is annoyed with her, may become an old witch ; a coquettish sister may be symbolised as a peacock in the dream fantasies. Speech makes use of these tricks of symbolisation at every turn. How can one blame the dreamer if he, too, employs symbolisation for his own ends ? In the dream, the sleeper must above all be protected from painful memories-hence the distortion. If, in cultured circles things have to be spoken of which infringe the bounds of decorum, we make use of similar circumlocutions. Every one is familiar with the many expressions used to denote the natural functions, when to call a spade a spade would offend the ear ; we have recourse to similar devices in relation to organs, places, and other objects, whose plain appellation is taboo. After a time the erstwhile " polite " expression becomes too clear in meaning; another has to be sought which, like the dream symbol, must simultaneously reveal and conceal the meaning of what w'e wish to express. A girl was wont automatically to shrug her shoulders ; she thus expressed the wish to shake off a heavy burden which was connected with a love affair. She was well aware of her burden, but was quite unaware of the relationship between it and her habitual gesture. A young asthmatic expressed through coughing that only with the utmost exertion could he pull through life, and that he felt he was making no forward progress. Just as many words have come to be used metaphorically, so have many ideas come to be used in the same way in dreams, hysteria, and obsessional neurosis. No one takes such phrases as, " He is weighed down by his sorrows," or " He has a bee in his bonnet," literally. " To cleanse oneself " is not only a religious expression, but in obsessional neurosis refers to the cleansing of the soul in a moral and religious sense. Hence the well-known washing mania. Precisely because the meaning of such expressions has become stereo- typed, it is often possible to give an immediate interpretation to a dream without asking for the associations. In general, however, one must be wary of too lightly interpreting such ASPECTS OF THE FORMATIVE ACTIVITIES 323 " typical symbols," seeing that they occasionally signify something altogether different. Finally we have of affect as another way in which the unconscious will evade the control of the conscious. The above-mentioned pseudo-reminiscence and false recogni- tion, which simultaneously comprised a transference of idea and of affect, provided us with an example. We owe to Ulrich Griininger a detailed study of transference of affect.1 Freud tells of a boy who was caught in the act of eating a piece of cake while simultaneously masturbating. Hence- forward the lad could no longer tolerate that particular cake, though he continued to indulge in his evil habit. Children will often shun places, people, and activities which are linked with disagreeable experiences (usually there are two or more similar experiences thus linked together). The dreaded something is repressed, and the child's fear becomes a riddle. Sometimes it happens that a child's entire life is influenced for bad by such circumstances. The psychologist of conscious mentation finds the condition enigmatical; for the psychologist of unconscious mentation, on the other hand, this state of the affective life becomes pregnant with meaning. He can dispel the trouble by the disclosure of the unconscious despot; by the discovery of the true antecedents, the real meaning, of the affects ; and by enabling the subject to assume a fully conscious attitude towards the strange feelings which have troubled him. (c) Trends of the reacting Impulses. Nothing gives a plainer demonstration of the creative nature of the mind than a contemplation of the changes which a repressed impulse undergoes and manifests. The old psychology of the dispositions, which contemplated the unconscious as an inert mass, implied a complete misunder- standing of the nature of the mind-a misunderstanding which was due to the incapacity of this psychology to penetrate the obscure realm of the unconscious. In Chapters Sixteen, Seventeen, and Eighteen, an account was given of the modifications which impulse undergoes when denied direct expression. Laborious attempts have been 1 Grttninger, Zum Problem der Affectverschiebung (thesis for doctorial degree), Zurich, 1917. 324 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS made to classify these substitute paths systematically, but for our purposes such a classification would be superfluous. It will be enough to dwell once more upon certain important points. The impulses must always be considered in their real connexions, in their relationship to the life as a whole. Thus it is an error to consider the will-to-power, or the sexual impulse, or even the gambling impulse or the acquisitive impulse, as if it were a separate entity. Such terminological distinctions are conceptual, not real. Those who leave this " organic outlook " (as I have named it, vide supra, p. 91) out of account are reviving and exaggerating the mistakes of the faculty psychology which, one hoped, had been given its quietus by Herbart. How many errors would Adler, for instance, have avoided, and how much more valuable would have been his noteworthy observations, if he had paid due attention to these relationships. As I have already pointed out, all the phenomena of the mental life are instinct with one and the same vital impulse, whose nature Freud has accurately grasped-although subsequent observers, like Jung, would fain deny his claim to this discovery. It is on record that Freud restricted the significance of the term " libido " to the mental aspects of the sexual life, and it is much to be regretted that these successors should have identified the libido with Freud's vital impulse, and should have come to regard it as their own discovery. The vital impulse turns now in this direction and now in that in accordance with varying influences proceeding, not only from the agreeable or disagreeable experiences that take place within the realm of consciousness, but also from repressions. We may note how, now the body, now the intellect or the emotions or the will, may be selected or rejected as a field of operation and an instrument. When feeling and activity have been made suspect by repression, the individual turns back to the realm of thought. This matter is of such supreme importance that it must be considered more closely. When the bridge to reality has been broken down, a man's behaviour resembles that of the monk who flees from the world into his cell. He makes his thought into a hermitage, and fashions a world for himself. ASPECTS OF THE FORMATIVE ACTIVITIES 325 We have studied the obsessive pondering which has lost touch with reality, so that it takes the form of stereotyped repetitions or is satisfied with reflections which may be extremely acute but are utterly arid, or may degenerate into conceptualist hair-splittings which have no bearing on the world of actual life. One affected with this malady of thought will saddle the Pegasus of his fantasy and fly forth into a world created after his own heart. The dream world in which he rules as creator is a substitute for the lost world of reality. Bleuler, to whom we are indebted for so many apt expressions and for so much valuable insight into the nature of these functions, has given to such behaviour the name of aw/isw. Having cut himself off from reality, the autist finds a substitute life in the world of his own imaginings. When boys and girls behave in this way, we are invariably justified in assuming that their love life has been affected by shocks, restrictions, inhibitions of development. When the introversion is well marked, when there is a vigorous turning away from other human beings and reality in general, great caution is requisite. The turning away from human beings does not always lead to autism. A lad who is scared away from his fellows may throw his energies into the study of natural science, or may become a collector, directing his love into these channels, and engaging all the more passionately in the task of research or collection in proportion to the degree of his indifference to his fellows. What we understand by autism is that, not human beings only, but also all the phenomena of the outer world, have ceased to interest. The wary educationist will never ignore a tendency to an overstressing of the life of imagination. When the tendency is slight, we need not be greatly concerned, though even then we must be on the watch for the repressions which may be responsible. High-grade autism, on the other hand, is always a serious matter. Sometimes the advice of an alienist must be invoked, for it may be the initial stage of grave mental disorder. An essential characteristic of all insanity is that the real world has ceased to exist for the lunatic, who thinks and acts in the autistic world of his own creation. It would be proper to treat of the turning towards a 326 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS higher ideal world or its opposite as the counterpart to this withdrawal into the ego, but enough has already been said upon that matter. I must point out, however, that ideals are only of value in so far as they embody the deepest and highest powers of reality, and thus serve the ends of real life. It is certain that in dreams we have symbolical disclosures of the altitudes and splendours of our mental existence, no less than disclosures of the unworthy side. The inference to be drawn from this recognition is a problem apart. Special attention must also be directed to a matter of peculiar importance to the understanding of mental develop- ment. When a hindrance is imposed to the vital stream, to the thoughts and activities of a human being, a reversal of current may ensue, and this is known as regression. As Freud well puts it, the pent-up waters flow back past places which they have already gone by on their downward course. When the mental development is inhibited at any point, past experiences, and (when the obstruction is formidable) past forms of activity, are revived. This revival may reach back into the experiences and activities of early childhood. Now, every repression acts as a dam in the vital stream, a dam that is smaller or larger as the case may be. The following is an instance of slight regression. A man of thirty-five is asked to squire a young lady who is staying in the same house on a brief visit. Although he recognises that she is both charming and intelligent, he cannot take the hint, and his behaviour is anything but gallant. But as soon as the guest has departed, our reluctant cavalier becomes a prey to moodiness, though he does not realise that this has any connexion with the lady's visit. At length, vexed with himself, he asks a medical friend to analyse the trouble. When associations with his moodiness are demanded, there comes into his mind a scene dating from the fifth year of his life. He was playing with his sister in the garden, and was enjoying himself immensely, when his elder brother came along, annexed the little girl, and left our friend lamenting. The young lady whom he was asked to squire had been introduced by a friend older than himself, who might be considered to have prior claims on her. In the unconscious, these relationships called up memories of the scene in his ASPECTS OF THE FORMATIVE ACTIVITIES 327 childhood's days when he had been robbed of his playmate. He would have liked to pay due attention to the young lady, but unconsciously was in the position of the burned child that dreads the fire. All that found its way into consciousness was the terminal affect of the former experience, the ill- temper. Had the memory of his childish disappointment become conscious, we may assume that his behaviour to the lady would have been all that could be desired.1 This example shows what knavish tricks regression can play. Unknown to themselves, many persons are persistently living in the past, and are therefore unable to understand the present and the future, and never succeed in adapting their actions to these. Without apparent cause, they display anger, despair, or hatred, because some present happening unwittingly reminds them of earlier experiences. The contemporary affect really belongs to the past. A trifle looms as a dread and monstrous thing, simply because the memory of some similar situation (which may truly have been terrible in its time) stirs in the unconscious, and the associated affect is transferred to the present situation. When a child weeps bitterly or flies into a passion about a matter of no importance, or when it completely misunderstands some plain observation, the cause often lies in a long-forgotten or repressed incident. To educationists, these regressions are of the utmost importance. The individual's mental development often takes aberrant paths and is frequently attended by intense distress simply because the person concerned is failing to distinguish the present from the past. He is fixed in the past, and is living in an unreal world of the imagination. Every neurotic is affected by such anachronisms. When the cramping of developmental progress is extreme, and when vigorous conations are at work, there may even be a relapse into infantile forms of activity. In dreams, such functional regression is the rule. But similar relapses may occur in the behaviour of one who is awake. Lunatics often behave like little children. We think, too, in this connexion, of the anabaptists, whose childish doings, akin to lunacy, have been so admirably described by Gottfried Keller in his novel Ursula. Oppressed by the terrible contrast between 1 Die psychanalytische Methode, p. 278. 328 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS ideal and reality, the anabaptists were unable to take refuge, like the Catholic zealots, in the other world of the cloister, and were equally unable to accept the compromises of the Reformers. Thoroughly vigorous persons affected by strong inhibitions may relapse into a state of childish dependence, behaving in every detail as they behaved on a similar occasion in the remote past. Thanks to repressions, many individuals remain throughout life entangled in childhood, deporting themselves like children. These are persons whose mental development is arrested. Others have developed normally ; but in adult life, owing to some distressing experience, they suddenly exhibit marked regression. I have spoken of them as " throwbacks." The human mind seeks to knit relationships with all the phenomena of experience. It does this in order to maintain its unity. The occurrence of regression is connected with this endeavour. The fact that, thanks to regression, the experiences of the first years of life may assume a decisive influence, shows how enormously important in its bearing on mental development is this early stage, and especially the first quinquennium of life. CHAPTER TWENTY INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTAL FACTORS i. The general Significance of Heredity. Exceedingly old is the controversy whether the development of human beings is predominantly influenced by heredity or by environment. Many believe that the individual must perforce become that which is prescribed for him by the aptitudes he brings into the world. On this theory, were it possible immediately after birth to take a skiagraph of the mind, we should be able to draw up an accurate forecast of the development of the individual's character, to foresee what talents he would display, what value he would place upon life, what would be his outlook on human society, and so on. According to such a conception, what people bring with them into life is decisive for all their subsequent develop- ment. If anyone is predestined to be a model of the virtues, a model will he become even though he be brought up in a criminal environment; and conversely. The alternative view is that environment forms the mind and moulds its growth. In favourable circumstances a child wall become a satisfactory personality; but should evil influences predominate, the same child will develop into a rogue and a criminal. Psychoanalytical experience would seem at the first glance to lend its support to the environmentalists. A great many peculiarities which in earlier days were facilely ascribed to hereditary predisposition, have now been shown to be the outcome of influences operating during the early years of childhood, this demonstrating how extremely powerful is the working of environment. Hence the conclusion that the first five years of life are of transcendent importance as determinative of the whole mental history of the individual. Should an aberration of growth arise at this period, its 329 330 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS subsequent correction will be extremely difficult. As the twig is bent, the tree's inclined. But when we look into the matter more closely, we see that a child's hereditary aptitudes are manifested by the way in which it reacts to external influences. The same stimulus, such as an attack by a dog, will induce a different response in different persons. Again, children react differently to incitations towards some forbidden practice. The importance of heredity, likewise, is therefore very great. Nevertheless, the persistent working of evil influences will cripple beyond recognition the mentality of one whose hereditary endowments were excellent ; and conversely, a wise education can do much to amend the mentality of one whose heredity has been extremely unfavourable. Psycho- analysis, applied to supposed ne'er-do-weels, with whom all other methods had failed, and who were believed to be congenitally corrupt, has often given excellent results, so that the persons concerned have seemed in the end to be well endowed by nature. As regards the varying significance of heredity and environ- ment, it is with human beings as with plants. The characteristics of the plant depend far more upon the seed than upon the soil. It is of primary importance that the seed should be healthy. Nevertheless, great weight must be attached to environing conditions. We must consider the soil, which must contain a due amount of nutritives and moisture ; the quality of the air ; protection from enemies ; and so on. Those, therefore, who wish to understand the development of love in children must pay equal heed to inherited tendencies and environmental influences. 2. The Interrelations of the Impulses ; their Classification. I have already pointed out that when I speak of an impulse I am only using a collective name for a number of kin- dred conations ; and I have shown that the various impulses are closely interconnected. I warned my readers against confusing the conceptual distinction with a real distinction. It would be well to undertake a systematic survey of the important varieties of impulse, and to discuss their relation- ships to love. I should also be glad to trace back the impulses INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTAL FACTORS 331 to their primitive forms, and to exhibit the way in which they have undergone an ever richer differentiation. But traditional psychology, to which this task properly belongs, leaves us in the lurch-here, as elsewhere, neglecting the domain of the voluntary life. We must, therefore, think out a classification for ourselves, with the proviso that the present work lays little stress upon systematism. It has often been contended that all the activities of mental life are referable to the urges towards self-preservation and species-preservation. But this outlook, taken over from natural science, does scant justice to the peculiarities, the creative characteristics, the boundless wealth of the human psyche. There are numerous mental activities which are not deducible from either of the two primary urges, nor yet from their cooperation. In truth, not only is man not content with seeking self-preservation ; but in his choice of modes of life he is determined by considerations some of which are independent, likewise, of the needs of species- preservation. The mere will to the preservation of self and of species is restricted to cases of urgent necessity or utter exhaustion-and even then there is often plain indication of conations that aim at something beyond bare existence. Where the species is concerned, we never find an isolated tendency to safeguard its existence, but always a tendency to raise that existence to a higher plane. The naturalism which derives its philosophy from the study of the lower animal world alone, has not achieved a masterpiece with the before-mentioned dichotomy, but has simply thrust a crude and short-sighted doctrine upon the world. In this doctrine there is a confusion between vessel and content. Life is the necessary vessel, but what really matters is the filling of the vessel with a precious content. The life of the individual and the life of the species are not the greatest goods-unless we give to the concept of " life " another and a far deeper significance than is given it in ordinary parlance. I myself hold that such a remodelling of the concept of life is essential. Just as we cannot understand the eye or the stomach unless we consider it in relation to the organism as a whole, so we cannot understand an isolated act of impulse without envisaging its dependence upon the entire mental life. Indeed, even the individual mental life cannot be 332 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS comprehended except fragmentarily and inadequately, if it be studied in isolation, and apart from the ties which in the realm of reality invariably connected it with the lives of other human beings. Furthermore, the evolution of humanity-at-large cannot be grasped in its innermost nature except in relation to a universal or absolute spiritual life. But here we are transcending the limits of experiential science to enter the domain of philosophy, and many positivists hold this to be a crime against science. Let me declare, therefore, in plain terms, that for my part, just as I find it impossible to understand the phenomena and the relationships of the individual life unless that life be considered as part of the life of the community, so do I find it impossible (and even more impossible) to attach any meaning to life in general without the aid of such metaphysical idealism.1 In accordance with this comprehensive outlook on life, we hold that life means to live for certain ends. These ends form a chain which corresponds to the development of the individual. The chain begins where the senses of the infant are at work ; and ultimately, after comprising the lesser or the greater part of humanity, lower or higher goods, it ends (to express the matter in religious terminology) in the divine. The individual proceeds from a universal life, from a divine will to love ; unless he take fright at the vastness of the horizon, his conations aspire towards this universal life and this divine love ; and only in so far as he receives and promotes this universal love, does he truly live. I must, unfortunately, content myself with elementary intimations, for otherwise I should be led too far into the discussion of philosophical problems. Throughout the development we have been sketching, we must never fail to distinguish between a subject and an object, between the bearer of life and the content of life. Without the bearer of life, there is no content of life ; and conversely. From this point of view we may distinguish between conations which aim at the preservation and the advantage of the bearers of life, and conations which are directed towards the content of life. * Cf. Psychoanalyse und Weltanschauung in my book Zum Kampf tun die Psychoanalyse, pp. 291-392 (especially pp. 342 et seq., and pp. 357-368). --Psychoanalysis and Philosophy, in Some Applications of Psychoanalysis. INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTAL FACTORS 333 To the former group of conations, those directed towards the bearers of our natural will-to-live, belong: (a) the impulse to self-preservation ; (b) the reproductive impulse ; (c) the social impulse. The latter group of conations, those directed towards the content of life, aim at the enjoyment or the production of the goods of life. 3. Particular Impulses. Let us begin with the impulses directed towards the procreation and the preservation of individuals, subsuming these under the name of the individuational impulses. (a) The individuational Impulses. a. The Impulse to Self-Preservation. Since the individual life constitutes the foundation of life development, the impulse to self-preservation claims precedence over all others. Still, we must not overestimate its importance. The centre of gravity of the life interest may be transferred from the physical to the moral personality whereby, thanks to the activity of the creative impulse, there have come into existence values which take precedence of the self-regarding impulse ; or the individuational impulse may prefer the saving of another life to self-preservation ; or the individual may sacrifice himself to the accomplishment of a high ideal. An exclusive concentration upon the idea of self-preservation may sometimes show itself to be an unnatural phenomenon by a change for the worse in the life sentiment until it becomes weariness of life. I shall make no attempt to depict the manifold varieties of the impulse to self-preservation. To one fact, however, I must draw the reader's attention. It is amazing how seldom one finds that risk to life has been a cause of inhibitions of development. So far as my personal experience goes, when an accident is an antecedent of a neurosis, such an accident has merely enabled preexistent conflicts (especially such as affect the amatory life) to find active expression. It seems to me, however, that the way in which a child has behaved during a moment of severe vital stress is of the utmost importance in the development of character. 334 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS Here is an example. A boy at the age of four or five was bitten in the cheek by a mastiff and was rescued by his father. Every care was taken of him, and these attentions somewhat compensated him for the distress he had endured. When he was six his head got stuck between two railings and he remained in this position for half an hour enduring terrible anxiety until at last his father freed him. A little later he would have been drowned had his father not saved him. The good father was always there to help, and the boy, except for his cries for help, remained passive while in danger. At the age of twenty-two, when I first made his acquaintance, he was still invariably helpless in critical moments. Before rejoining his regiment in order to go to the front, he was waylaid one night and maltreated, being mistaken for some one else. He did not lift a finger in self-defence and ex- pressed his feelings to me in the following words : "I was so pleased to know that I was innocent ! I could not have borne the idea that I had injured anyone ! " Let us immediately proceed to the sequel. I came to know this man while he was interned at Davos, a prisoner of war, and suffering from pulmonary tuberculosis. All day long he was a prey to anxiety, and at night he frequently waked his comrades by loud cries which could only be quelled after he had been roused from sleep. The anxiety was the expression of a dream in which the sleeper was attacked by a negro and found himself unable to repel the black man's onslaught. In actual fact, after he had been exposed for seventy-two hours to artillery fire, his trench had been stormed, and a black soldier had wanted to cut my friend's throat. A French non- commissioned officer had prevented the deed. This experience obviously furnishes a cause for the present anxiety. But other facts have still to be taken into consideration. The young man had shown great courage during the campaign, had rescued wounded comrades while under fire, and had performed many other deeds of daring. None of his comrades understood his gentle disposition, his yearning for home, and his delight in the mountain scenery. Hence his love need became pent up. The anxiety was the outcome of the experience which had excited his fright. But why did he not simply dream that his father came to his rescue ? The unconscious is artful: the young man automatically calls INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTAL FACTORS 335 aloud so that a comrade may play the father's part, and will, as a consequence and in reality bring him help and comfort.1 In the course of the analysis the young man came to recognise the relationships underlying the dream and realised that he could no longer remain a passive child. The following night he slept peacefully and without any recurrence of the anxiety, but he wept in his sleep. I will give his dream and the meaning of it here. " I am in mufti. My four-year-old brother and I are standing in a little cart, which suddenly rolls away down the hill in front of our house. My little brother falls out of the cart. Then my father came and said : ' I say, old man, why don't you take more care. Your brother might have broken his arm or his leg.' In effect, something was the matter with my brother, for he could scarcely pick himself up. My father helped him to his feet. Then I began to weep that things had gone so ill with my little brother and that my father had scolded me." [I am in mufti.] That would be far better. I have no one with whom I can enjoy the beauties of nature. [The little brother.] A charming lad, nine years old, is doing awfully well at school. I was too (twitching round his mouth). I should so love to see him. [The little cart.] When I was thirteen I bought one like it, but it wasn't any good. It soon broke, but there was no accident. [The little cart rolls away.] Nothing. [The little brother falls.] Nothing. [My father helped.] Nothing. No associations could be obtained because a slight inhibition was at work, and, in the speed with which I had to carry out the analysis, I was unable to overcome it. Still, the meaning is fairly obvious. The dreamer should have paid heed to the little cart which conveyed him and his little brother ; he fails to do so and is scolded by the father. We immediately recognise the old problem of passivity and the indolent dependence on the father ; but now it is accompanied with severe censure. After considering all the parts of the 1 Cf. my essay Die verschiedenartige Psychogenitat der Kriegsneurosen, " Internationale Zeitschrift fur hrtzliche Psychoanalyse," v, pp. 288-294. 336 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS dream in conjunction with the associations, we arrive at the following explanation. " In mufti." I want to be back in civil life. " My four-year-old brother and I." The little brother resembles the dreamer ; both are good scholars, the elder loves the younger. Here we have to do with a dissociation. The dreamer dissociates himself into a child and a man, and by this means expresses a situation which pleases his fancy. He presents himself simultaneously as a brave man and as a dependent, helpless child. " We are standing in a little cart which suddenly rolls away down the hill in front of our house." The dreamer as a child played in this spot with a vehicle of the same kind, which broke. According to the dream he behaves in the same way now as he used to in days gone by, and lets the little cart run away instead of resolutely seizing hold of it. " My little brother falls out of the cart and comes to grief, the father helps him up, scolding me the while." A well- deserved punishment for wilfulness. The meaning may be given something after this fashion: Because you allowed your immaturity to go unprotected, you involved yourself in great dangers; and even though, as you expected, your father came to the rescue and raised you up, your behaviour has entailed grave disadvantages. " I began to weep that things had gone so ill with my little brother and that my father had scolded me." The weeping is for the troubles which he has brought upon himself and refers also to the recognition that a release from infantile conditions must follow. Behind the father is hidden the analyst who makes this clear to him. To summarise the whole thing in a sentence: When I return to civil life I must give up, to my great sorrow (weeping), my immaturity, my passive trust in my father's assistance, else I shall do myself a great wrong; and I must pay keen attention to the infantile traits in my character and cautiously guide them into other paths. A satisfactory dream should always give expression to a wish-fulfilment, but to the analysand it seemed that his dream failed to do this. Hence the deviation from the natural path of the dream-the weeping. Like the crying out in the INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTAL FACTORS 337 dream previously related, like the flight into wakefulness in many other dreams, this weeping discloses that the unconscious cannot reach its goal by means of the dream imagery. The dreamer is not content. He perceives what is to happen, and is vexed by the recognition of the duty which is incumbent upon him. His detachment from the infantile, still seems to him a troublesome matter. The task of the analyst was to show him how great were the advantages that would accrue to him if he should faithfully discharge what he recognised to be morally necessary. We see plainly that the shock to the impulse of self- preservation is not sufficient to account for the onset of the anxiety ; but that, owing to his having adopted a passive attitude when he experienced a fright in childhood, this anxiety has led to an inhibition of love and has thus dominated the behaviour in the most important situations of life. But many other happenings must have contributed to these developments, and the analysand had not had such an upbringing as might have corrected the aberration. ft. The sexual Impulse. By sexuality I understand the sum of all the physical and psychical phenomena which concern reproduction or the activity of the reproductive organs. It is necessary that we should have a precise idea of the meaning of the term, for it has been very variously understood, and the multiplicity of meanings has led to much confusion. It is true that before the discoveries of Sigmund Freud every one was aware that sexuality played an extremely important part in the development of the life of the child, but people had not enough courage and energy to heave the lead of research into this dangerous ocean. Prejudice, conventionality, and lack of method have been responsible for grave sins of omission, with disastrous results to myriads of unhappy children. Among the causes of the evolution and the aberrations of the amatory life, sexual causes play a peculiarly important part. Since we are here chiefly concerned with the aberrations, and wish to arm ourselves against the attacks of heresy-hunters, we shall remind the reader at the outset of Nietzsche's oft-quoted saying : " The 338 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS degree and the kind of a human being's sexuality exert their influence even at the topmost summit of the mind." 1 One of the great difficulties in the way of sexological research is that as a rule the sexual experiences of children, and in especial the most important of these, are repressed. Unwary elders are therefore apt to assume that children have no sexual experiences-much as if a soldier, surveying a well-wooded countryside and seeing no signs of the enemy, should infer that the enemy was not there. Sigmund Freud, the pioneer in this domain, has expressed the following view's concerning sexuality in children.3 The newborn child brings into the world with it the germs of sexual activity ; these develop for a time, and already secure gratification in the act of sucking; then the current is dammed up (pp. 28 et seq.), and the manifestations of sex can no longer display themselves openly.3 Part of the pent-up sexuality transfers its energy to higher mental activities. Another part of the energy, how'ever, finds vent in devious ways and under a disguise : in rhythmical sucking movements apart from those directly concerned in the taking of nutriment (p. 40), which arouse a sexually tinged pleasure (p. 43) ; or in the stimulation of certain other parts of the body where tactile impressions arouse sexual pleasure (" erogenic zones "). The lower end of the intestine must be specially mentioned among these regions. Constipation in infants, wffiich is one of the most trustworthy premonitory symptoms of neurosis in later life, arises from the secret intention to procure pleasure from a more vigorous stimulation of the anal zone (p. 46). The genital zone becomes a source of pleasure somewhat later. Hardly anyone escapes the practice of infantile masturbation (p. 47) ; but after the before-mentioned suppression this usually passes into abeyance for some years (p. 47), unless the child be deliberately taught a bad habit. Nocturnal incontinence of urine is usually to be interpreted as a sexual disorder, and therewith the primary masturbation often recurs. The fact that all possible perversions can be initiated by seduction leads us to infer that there is a general * Jenseits von Gut and Bbse, iii, 75. * Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie. 3 We are reminded of Pestalozzi's saying, quoted on p. no: " The germs of love in the child are developed by the mother's activities in feeding the child, in caring for it and protecting it, and in ministering to its pleasure." INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTAL FACTORS 339 predisposition to these (p. 49). We may also observe a hereditary predisposition to algolagnia, either in its active form, when pleasure is derived from inflicting pain on others or from watching pain in others (sadism), or in the passive form when pleasure is derived from suffering pain (masochism). Noteworthy, likewise, are inspectionism and exhibitionism (p. 50), which may also extend to the processes of evacuation. I may interrupt Freud's highly important exposition of sexuality in children to refer to an amplification published at a later date. Primarily, he says, the child is purely autoerotic. At this stage it knows nothing of an external object for sexuality. The child's sexual impulse seeks and finds its object in the child's own body.1 Not until puberty, is the sexual impulse normally directed towards members of the other sex. Between these two phases there is a period during which the child's own body is the object of its sexual desires. To put the matter in popular phraseology, during this phase the human being is in love with himself, and indeed with his own outward aspect-a thing which cannot yet be asserted of the infant. We read in Greek mythology of a youth, Narcissus by name, who became enamoured of his own image reflected in a fountain. Consequently, the word narcissism has been coined to denote the stage in which " the subject's own body is regarded with all the affection which is ordinarily directed towards another sexual object." 2 Should the normal evolution of love, its normal direction outwards, be arrested owing to repression, there ensue the neuroses and psychoses in which the individual cuts himself off from the outer world, has no love for the objective, and turns all his affection inwards. These are the narcissistic neuroses. Before studying such aberrations more closely, let us continue the account of normal development. Normally, then, the sexual interest soon passes beyond the narrow confines of the subject's own body, and love is directed towards members of the other sex. Feelings of tension arise ; at first they are painful, but they aim at a pleasurable release of tension. The nearest object is the mother in the case of a boy and the father in the case of a girl, all the more seeing that from the earliest years sexual passion is guided into these 1 Freud, Vorlesungen zur Einfuhrung in die Psychoanalyse, p. 359. • Op. cit., p. 484. 340 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS channels by kisses, caresses, and other experiences, which indubitably contain a sexual element.1 As a matter of fact, these particular objectivations of love never fail to arise in the world of imagination, but usually show themselves under a disguise (p. 73). The incest barrier, the instinctive inward prohibition of sexual relationships between persons connected by such close ties of blood, is set up. It is therefore necessary to find another object for love. Where this transition is not effected, neurosis or perversion ensues. By perversion we mean that a manifestation of sexuality which is per se normal, but which ought to have a subordinate and transient signi- ficance in relation to the totality of the normal sexual life, assumes (thanks to inhibitions of development which will subsequently be described) preponderant importance-to the exclusion of normal functioning (p. 77). Freud emphasises the view that throughout all these developments heredity has decisive influence (p. 80). The way in which the individual reacts to stimuli is determined by his hereditary equipment in sexual matters. But Freud does not believe that there is an absolutely unalterable congenital endowment, thanks to which for every individual it is predetermined at birth what the course of his develop- ment must be, regardless of the nature of his experiences (p. 81). Under the influence of environmental stimuli, the amatory fife may assume the most diverse forms. As experience and education vary, the individual may become normal, perverse, or neurotic. Such is Freud's hypothesis. To those without expert knowledge it seems strange, and even repulsive. Let the reader guard against the favourite error of mankind, which is to decide questions as to being or not-being in the light of prepossessions. All science is based upon the postulate that our judgments shall be founded, not upon our wishes, but upon facts-which are often distasteful and stubborn. For many years, my own attitude towards Freud's theory of sexual development was one of enquiry and hesitation; but it was always a source of amazement to me that persons who knew absolutely nothing of the matter, and who had not taken the least pains to learn anything about it, should feel entitled to form a judgment offhand. The further my own * Drei Abhandlungen, etc., p. 71. INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTAL FACTORS 341 researches advanced, and the more ample my opportunities for following clues into the labyrinth of the neuroses, the more did I find (to my own astonishment, and even regret) that Freud's outlooks were in many respects confirmed. Great difficulties had to be overcome before I could get so far. And even now, I accept some of Freud's theories with consider- able reserve. I shall subsequently give examples to show how sexual repressions may affect the whole course of the individual's development. The conditions that induce such inhibitions arise in the first instance out of the clash with external forces. y. The social Impulse. The social impulse is a comprehensive name for all the urges directed towards the maintenance and the advancement of the general life of mankind. Manifestly this social impulse has intimate relationships with both the impulse to self- preservation and the sexual impulse, but the nature of the connexion cannot be considered here. Greatly diversified are the ties by which the individual feels himself to be connected with his fellows, and which he endeavours to form with them. They are ties of giving and receiving, controlling and being controlled, respect and contempt, love and hatred. The individual's position in the world is such that he must pay heed to the preservation of other human beings. For his own sake, man has need of his neighbour. Psychoanalysis shows that every one who shuts himself away from others, every one who withdraws from contact with his fellows, is exposed to grave dangers. At the outset, regard for self-preservation preponderates ; but by degrees the sphere of interest is extended to include other human beings. Whether such a transference of feelings is vigorous or weak, and whether love or hate gains the upper hand, is largely determined by heredity, but is also greatly influenced by experience. The observed facts would be incomprehensible unless there existed hereditary predisposi- tions capable of making themselves felt sometimes, even when circumstances are strongly adverse. I regard as fallacious the attempt to interpret all altruistic feelings as manifesta- tions of egoism. In the case of many of the lower animals, 342 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS ants for instance, no one dreams of explaining in the terms of a secret egoism that social impulse which may be so powerful as to lead the individual worker to sacrifice her life for the community. I hold that in human beings the existence of a primitive disposition to altruism is just as certain-even though it be incontestable that the ego maybe projected into the tu, and that the sacrifice to the tu may be effected for the sake of the ego. In large measure, moreover, the aptitude for social conation is an expression of racial experience. Very important, in this connexion, is the nature of the individual's aim in life. One whose desires reach out strongly towards goods for which others are vigorously competing, will develop his social impulses in a different way from one who avoids such conflicts thanks to his modesty and the difference of his tastes. It follows from these considerations that the possible developments of the feelings of the individual towards his fellows are infinitely various. I propose to refer to only one group of these, which Alfred Adler regards as exclusively determinative of the general trend of character and as exclusively responsible for the causation of the Adler considers that from the time of the first cry the individual is hostile to the outer world,1 the reason being that the body finds the winning of pleasure difficult. Thus there arises from the first an aggressive impulse which is referable to a primary physical inferiority (p. 25). For instance, a major inspectionist impulse is due to an inferiority of the eye ; marked bulimia, to an inferiority of the digestive apparatus ; a major sexual impulse, to an inferiority of the sexual organs (p. 27). Ferocity towards others may by reversal manifest itself by pity, sympathy, and altruism (p. 30) ; but, in certain conditions, it may lead to delusions of persecution (p. 32). The feeling of congenital bodily inferiority may induce impudence, courage, and arrogance, a disposition to domineer, obstinacy ; but may sometimes display itself as docility and subordination (pp. 86 et seq.). The child, being aware of its inferiority, seeks compensation, wishes to be great, to rule.' Thus the aggressive impulse coalesces with the endeavour to become like the great and the strong (p. 15). Egoism, envy, * Adler and Furtmdller, Heilen und Bilden, 1914, p. 28, * Ueber den nervdsen Charakter, 1912, p. 14. INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTAL FACTORS 343 avarice, a disposition to depreciate others, and the will-to- power, are the expression of attempts to compensate for primary bodily insufficiency (p. 18). The nervous tempera- ment and all neurotic symptoms are due to the same cause. This theory of Adler's is not in accordance with the facts. Its fundamental defect is to be found in the way in which it takes certain phenomena which manifest themselves only in conjunction with others, and treats of them as if they existed in isolation. Also, it refers everything to a single function. Adler greatly overestimates the significance and the scope of the " aggressive impulse." He offers no proof whatever that the newborn infant's first cry is attended by a feeling of hostility to the outer world. The will-to-power may be accompanied by a joyful affirmation of the objects of experience ; and even when obstacles are imposed, it does not follow that the individual will become actively hostile. When a longing for aggression does arise, it is not necessarily referable to any physical inferiority, being often a reaction induced by the rejection of loving advances which have nothing whatever to do with the child's inborn bodily equipment. Adler's generalisations are far too sweeping. Although certain bodily defects may be compensated by a substitute function, this does not always happen. In the first place it occurs only when the defect is felt; and moreover, we cannot explain the nature of the substitute formation simply with reference to the extant physical inferiority. A stammerer will not necessarily become a Moses or a Demos- thenes ; one who suffers from ear disease will not perforce develop into a Beethoven. There may be vigorous inspectionist impulses in persons whose sight is excellent ; and bulimia is met with in those whose masticatory and digestive apparatus is irreproachable. Numerous cases have come under my observation in which inspectionist longings and bulimia were unquestionably the outcome of sexual processes. Adler commits an almost unpardonable error when he gravely assures us that sexual urges are never the causes of self-regarding conations.1 The founder of the theory of the inferiority complex, at this stage of his researches, failed to recognise that there is ' Heilen and Bilden, p. 102. In this connexion, Ci. Pfister, Die Plda- gogik der Adlerschen Schule, " Berner Seminarblitter,'' vol. viii, Nos. 7-9. 344 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS a fundamental impulse to love. The significance of the impulse to species-preservation in relation to the genesis of social feelings seemed entirely hidden from him. Anyone without prepossessions can see that egoism, envy, avarice, the disposition to depreciate others, the will-to-power, and other anti-social sentiments, arise when the will-to-love, frequently encounters a powerful resistance from the outer world. Adler could see nothing but Darwin's and Nietzsche's struggle for existence ; the even more elemental law of mutual aid, the principle of Christianity and of Kropotkin, escaped his notice. I have myself known a number of persons who suffered from severe neuroses though they were admirably endowed in the physical respect, and though they were convinced that they possessed excellent constitutions-the freedom from any bodily defect being confirmed by medical examination. On the other hand, I have certainly known persons in whom a sense of spiritual, intellectual, or moral inferiority contributed to the development of neurosis. Adler has failed to draw the necessary distinction between the individual's feeling that others regard him as inferior, and a sense of self-condemnation. It is the latter which is so crushing in its influence (vide supra, p. 246). Adler would do well to make a careful study of the origin of the will-to- power. He would then realise how closely it is connected with the cramping of the inborn love conations. Of late Adler has begun to pay due heed to the social impulses. He no longer considers the individual as a solitary being, and is prepared to admit that social conation is an inborn and essential factor of the mental life.1 This is an approximation to Freud's outlook. It remains for Adler to undertake the great task of showing how the social impulse develops in the child, and how disturbances of this impulse affect the general life of the individual. He will then perceive that not only the will-to-power, but also loving, giving, serving, the need for affection and for being understood, are among the primary goods of the human spirit. Those who wish to do justice to the social impulses must dig far more deeply than Adler has done. With perfect impartiality they must contemplate the incredible multi- plicity of mental life. The paucity of our knowledge makes * Adler, Praxis und Theorie der Individualpsychologie, 1920, p. ii. INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTAL FACTORS 345 it impossible, as yet, to undertake a full and accurate descrip- tion of the social impulse. (b) The acquisitive Impulse and the creative Impulse. In its instinctive movements and in its mental activities, the child gradually comes to display an acquisitive impulse and a formative energy which cannot be explained out of the individuational impulses alone. . Over and above the conations towards self-preservation and species-preservation, it exhibits the conation to provide a worthy present and future for the human species. We are concerned here with the uplifting of life by means of acquired and created goods, the impulse in this direction being obviously due to a peculiar hereditary endowment of the psyche, though favourable con- ditions must obtain if this urge for the uplifting of life is to come into play. Were there nothing more than desires for self-preservation and species-preservation, the mind would be like a philistine who has sunk to the level of a machine, who glorifies the existing state of affairs, and lives in a conservative's paradise. Yet everywhere we discern the endeavour to secure goods transcending what is necessary for bare existence. We see an urge for more satisfaction, for better functional activity, for higher communal values ; and these things are sought in manifold directions. There is ground for describing the human spirit as insatiable in its demands that the content of life shall be enriched. From the vegetative stage, the will-to-live progresses towards higher experience and activity, to find full satisfaction only in an ideal world with infinite perspectives-though, of course the phases of animal existence and of primitive human existence cannot be simply jettisoned. Even though the creative impulse may originally have been subservient to mere self-preservation and species-preservation, in accordance with its congenital nature it reaches out beyond these far into the infinite, thereby displaying its kinship with the primal will, whose creative power finds expression in the perpetual ascent of the world process. We attain to goods which are more than mere life ; to values in default of which existence would lose all meaning and all charm for the most advanced representatives of our 346 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS species, so that they would unquestionably cast it from them like an unclean rag. Were it true that mankind knows no impulses higher than those of self-preservation and species- preservation, one who lives as a bachelor would be sinning against his nature ; whereas the slave-owner who should safeguard the existence and reproduction of his slaves, while otherwise maltreating them, would be living in harmony with human nature. Furthermore, from the biological out- look the naturalistic theory is false. In many cases, the fittest have not endeavoured to secure survival, but have sacrificed their own lives on behalf of the before-mentioned higher values. To phrase the matter more aptly, they deemed the purely vegetative existence as a subhuman, an animal, prelude to true life, and held that this true life could only be found in the super-animal realm. In my opinion, such a view of the creative impulse is the only one which does justice to human nature ; and I think that naturalism, with its mechanistic doctrine of mankind, is a short-sighted and superficial theory. But even the creative impulses must not be conceived as really distinct from the other impulses. Precisely because this impulse to gain higher values for life is a definite part of human nature, the impulse to self-preservation itself con- tains among its elements the aspiration for a richer equip- ment of our physical and mental furniture. In like manner the sexual will is fulfilled with a higher sympathy, and love with a loftier spirituality, thanks to which the natural pur- pose is invested with the sheen of a sublime illumination. Finally, social endeavour is also concerned with the winning of new goods for life ; for, apart from pathological manifes- tations, only those values which contribute something to others as well as to the individual can satisfy and gratify the latter. Of course the striving for self-advancement, self- expression, and power, and even the combative urge, pass insensibly into love, and into scientific and social conations. One who would explain everything in terms of egoism is trampling on human dignity. If the facts were so, we should indeed have to make the best of them. But happily the facts are otherwise. We need not attempt to split the acquisitive impulse and the creative impulse into their respective elements. INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTAL FACTORS 347 Nor is it our task to describe the vestiges from man's primitive human ancestry (and even from his animal ancestry) which slumber in the unconscious of contemporary human beings, to be awakened to life from time to time by powerful inhibitions, by catastrophes, and by wars. Enough has been said of the upward tendency with which human nature is instinct. Only because opponents of psychoanalysis are continually distorting its doctrines, do I feel compelled to insist once again that Freud has never proposed to deduce the whole of life from sexuality ; has never suggested that art, morality, religion, science, and all the higher mental life, are simply expressions of sexuality. Who would be such a simpleton as to declare that a painting of Titian's is nothing more than ether waves ? But no one who has paid even superficial attention to psychoanalysis can deny that the life impulse, when it turns from primitive to higher functions, transfers mental energy from the former to the latter. Just as little as the artist is degraded by having to eat and drink, just as little as religious exaltation loses its value because it cannot occur without organic sensations, just as little as man should be despised because his genealogical tree reaches back into the animal world- just so little do the higher mental activities forfeit their title to respect because they cannot occur without sub- limation. I have already shown that sublimation is some- thing very different from the mere diversion of primitive impulses to higher ends. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE THE IMPORTANCE OF THE PARENTS AND OF OTHER PERSONS IN THE MOULDING OF LOVE IN THE CHILD 1. The Influence of the Parents. (a) Desire and Aversion, Assimilation and Disassimilation. It would be superfluous to insist once more upon the impor- tance of hereditary endowments. For the unborn child, the mother is the world. She is the only tie with the outer world. For the newborn infant, she provides the chief goods of life, being the first bridge between the island of the ego and other persons and things. By degrees only does the father become his wife's assistant, and her rival for the child's favour. A little child's general attitude towards its parents is one of comparison to them or of contrast with them, of assimi- lation or disassimilation. Love arouses a tendency to make oneself like the beloved, whereas hatred induces the opposite inclination. A loving child wants to be as like father and mother as possible. But I do not agree with Haberlin 1 that there is a real tendency to identification, for the child desires to remain itself despite all wish for assimilation. In many cases, too, when the love for the parents is very power- ful, there is an inclination to outdo the parental example. Very important from the educational point of view is the fact that the development of love is not mainly influenced by the commands or requests of the father or the mother, even when these are reinforced by rewards and punishments ; the whole personality of the parents is operative. Where there is a tie of cordial affection, there is not need of many words, for whatever is said is willingly accepted, easily 1 Wege und Irrwege der Erziehung, 1918, p. 169. 348 MOULDING OF LOVE IN THE CHILD 349 understood, and acted on with ready compliance. On the other hand, where dislike is dominant, the wisest precepts encounter opposition and arouse disgust, so that the per- sonality of the unloved teacher forms the living counter- influence of the most logical and ethical prescriptions. A child can be easily led by the tie of an unspoiled love. Now, we have learned that a study of the conscious does not inform us as to a child's true feelings in this matter of love or hate. When the child is full of conscious feelings of affection, the unconscious may be charged with hatred, and may sometimes exhibit its aversion in the most distressing ways (vide supra pp. 128 and 200). On the other hand, when the child's facial expression and behaviour indicate hatred, love may be flaming in the unconscious and may manifest itself in strange and secret ways. At first, in all children, love preponderates. But if conflicts arise between the parental will and that of the child (and such conflicts can rarely be avoided), the love may be transformed into hate, which is usually no more than a form of unsatisfied love. Then, wishes for the parents' death are apt to arise, and we shall do ill to be outraged by this, for the child has as yet no accurate notion of the nature of death. But experi- ence shows that the child is loath to forgive itself for the evil urges. They are usually repressed, and we have studied striking examples of how they are atoned for in that case (pp. 136, 139 and 186). Here, however, we are concerned only with normal development. Many a ne'er-do-well is guided by the wish to pay out his detested father. The moral law, the social order, and the State, are the more repulsive to him, in proportion as his father seems to him a moral and honourable man ; and the infringement of the moral law and injury to the social order give the child all the more pleasure. Many who detest teachers and other persons set in authority over them, who loathe the State and its official chief, and whose hatred extends even to God himself, are in reality inspired only with hatred for the father, the misdirection being due to an unconscious change of address. The assumption would seem to be that the aversion brings about an enfranchise- ment from the influence of the detested person ; but in reality it increases the dependency of the hater, and freedom 350 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS is not achieved until the hatred disappears. This psycho- logical truth is of great importance in education. Parents who win a child's affection, bestow upon it the greatest good in the world. Love for good parents is the most powerful factor of moral education. All morality and all religion must be built upon this foundation. When the father unbends in play with his child, it will often prove a hundred times more beneficial than the most exalted precepts. Of course I do not mean to imply that special educational measures are of no importance. But I wish to insist that the most excellent elders may do much harm if they lack insight into the mind of the child. I shall presently describe the results of certain pedagogic errors, and in the concluding portion of the book I shall draw some general conclusions. The essential point is that a child's conations are far more powerfully influenced by its general impression of the per- sonality of its elders than by all their educational knowledge and ability. When the child loves its parents greatly, it wants to resemble them as much as possible. If its talents do not suffice for this, severe conflicts will often ensue, and a father will do well to show his son that very different manifestations of endowment may be of equal value. Many novelists, and notably Strauss in Freund Heim, have shown how disastrous are the results when a father attempts to impose his wishes upon the son and wants to find in the son a reincarnation of his own personality. In Freund Heim, the father insists upon his son's having a higher school education because he himself went to the Gymnasium; though extremely fond of the boy, he will not give the latter any opportunity for the exercise of a well-marked artistic faculty ; he forces his son through class after class at tiie Gymnasium until, after indescribable suffering, the un- happy lad kills himself. Freud has pointed out that the doting affection of many mothers is simply a form of nar- cissism. Such self-love in the parents has often a far worse effect upon a child's development than lovelessness. I shall now briefly allude to the abnormal forms of assimilation to the parents. When a boy who wishes to resemble or even to excel his father lacks the necessary talent, he will be apt to exhaust himself mentally and physi- MOULDING OF LOVE IN THE CHILD 351 cally in the vain endeavour to overstimulate his inadequate powers. Often, in such cases, the natural demand for love is suppressed, and the ambitious desires devour the joy of life. I have known instances in which youthful cheerfulness, and subsequently, conjugal love, were sacrificed in order to make it possible to impress the father and to outdo him in outward success. When the prime of life was reached, melancholy ensued because the game was found not to have been worth the candle. Often, on the other hand, the attempt to resemble the father is soon abandoned, with a consequent loss of self-respect and an impairment of the joy of life. Such victims of morbid attempts at assimilation to the father are always animated by hatred for the father, which may be either conscious or unconscious. In girls the attempt to resemble the father is apt to be associated with the wish to have the male sexual characters. In such cases there often ensues a masculinisation which cramps the in- alienable affects of the woman, imposes an impossible role in the drama of life, squanders the sympathies, and conjures up one conflict after another until bitterness and enmity dominate the mind. Or there may ensue a sense of nullity, passivity, the hatred characteristic of the powerless and the downtrodden. In one case (supra p. 282), we saw refrac- toriness towards the mother arise as the outcome of assimi- lation to the father. Since the fruits of these dangerous plants do not usually ripen until after the days of childhood, we need not follow the matter further here. An assimilation of the son to the mother is just as com- mon. When this happens, if the mother is characteristically feminine in type, the boy will encourage feminine character- istics in himself at the expense of masculine traits. He grows soft; feeling bulks largely instead of will and activity ; petty troubles are exaggerated ; and the less able the boy is to dispel the causes of his suffering by throwing himself into the life of activity, the more does he succumb to grief and melancholy-angling the while with complaints in a typically infantile fashion, in order to catch sympathy and affection. A subtle adaptive mechanism, whose complex structure is still obscure to us, sees to it that suffering shall be equipped with the sweetest charms. Thereby the door is opened for what may be called the automatic self-strengthening ten- 352 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS dency characteristic of masochism. Many a life has been devastated by such a development. Moreover, the most various character traits, predilections, and habits, of the mother may be adopted and ardently cultivated. As a counterpart to this sentimental mother-fixation, we have a repression of affect in the son as the outcome of a disassimilation from the mother. But we must be careful to avoid the error of regarding the father as in every case the embodiment of reason and will, and the mother as the embodiment of feeling. There are many families in which the allotment of these mental faculties is the very opposite. Striking are the cases in which the physical character- istics of the other sex are, consciously or unconsciously, appropriated by the imagination. They are by no means rare, but the imaginative process is usually unconscious, and can then only be detected by a far-reaching analysis. In a neurotic boy who had symbolically castrated himself in the course of a remarkable accident, there was a feeling that he possessed the female sexual organs, and this feeling attained an almost hallucinatory intensity. He exhibited alternations between a feminine softness of disposition and violent fits of passion ; and from time to time he lacked the mental energy to deal successfully with the most trifling difficulties. When the assimilation to father and mother has induced an excessive cramping of impulse (for instance, when love and hatred for the parents have been dissociated with the consciousness and repressed), the individuality may be, as it were, split into two portions, so that a double life ensues, in which now the paternal constellation, now the maternal, gains the upper hand as a sort of morbid caricature. Let me add that such a development of character depends upon extremely complicated processes which are very inadequately described by the names of assimilation and disassimilation. (J) The Oedipus Complex. We have already (supra p. 173) referred to the great importance of the Oedipus complex, in which the son loves the mother and hates the father; and in which, conversely, the daughter is drawn to the father and feels more or less repulsion for the mother. We have encountered a number MOULDING OF LOVE IN THE CHILD 353 of cases of this sort, sometimes exhibiting both the positive and the negative aspect of the complex, and sometimes only one of these. Such an attitude may exist also in the normal child, but it does not then give rise to a pathogenic fixation. We need not be surprised that inborn instinct may lead to so early a sexual differentiation, for every one is familiar with the way in which the behaviour of children will antici- pate subsequent developments-as, for instance, in a girl's play with dolls. In the case of the Oedipus complex, are we concerned with real sexual desire and genuine death wishes, or is there nothing more than innocent fondness and aversion ? In countless instances, the malevolent wishes have been thor- oughly genuine. But, for that very reason, they have been repressed from consciousness ; and, owing to the repression, they have become far more powerful than if they had been simply controlled. We noted this in the case of the girl who visual- ised herself as being broken on the wheel in the place of the parricide. Subsequently, she wished to atone by an exag- gerated worship of her father, but the persistence of the death wish was betrayed by the obsession that her father's death was imminent (supra p. 139). We cannot doubt that something more than an innocent petty animosity must have occasioned the distressing imaginative atonement. Moreover, in many analyses we encounter the memory of experiences which manifestly awakened crude sexual desires in the child. Direct observation will also show that children under school age, having continued to share their parents' bedroom too long, may cherish definite sexual desires. A mother reported to me that when her husband was away her little boy of five came to her with an erect penis, and to her horror, said he would like to do to her what Father did. The hatred is usually the outcome of jealousy, for the boy wants to have the mother for himself alone, and sees that his rival, the father, is granted privileges that are denied to himself. Originally the death wish is not really malevolent, for children regard death as nothing more than a prolonged sleep. I knew a boy of five who had attended his father's funeral. That same day he said : " Father is in his grave now, but when will he come home again ? After a time, however, a child realises what the death wish means. 354 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS Thereupon, aghast at the thought, it represses the wish, so that the splinter, which had barely pierced the skin, is driven far into the body. The duplex relationship towards the father and the mother arouses an internal conflict which is certainly of great significance to the development of individuality. The struggle between father and mother within the child's mind has an educational influence; but in some cases the effects are disastrous. Of course these relationships of the Oedipus complex must not be conceived too rigidly. It may happen that a boy is strongly attached to his father and has an aversion for his mother. But here we have to do with a secondary transposition of affects. It must be remembered, moreover, that the consciousness gives very untrustworthy information concerning the respective potentials of love and hate. Whereas many girls fall sick because they would fain be men, it may happen that a youth suffers from a cramping of the love sentiment (engendering neurosis) because he is not a girl. This is especially apt to occur when the parents have made no secret of the fact that they would rather have had a daughter than a son.1 In many cases the relationship to the parents has run along normal lines for a long term of years. Then some grave vital inhibition arises, and the Oedipus complex (which had passed into abeyance) becomes active once more. And whereas, before, it had been harmless, it now shows a morbid distortion and accentuation. The " family romance," as Freud termed the two aspects of the fantasies arising out of the Oedipus complex, may be intensified and rendered dangerous by various errors in up- bringing. Important factors here are undue tenderness, on the one hand, and the failure to make an adequate response to the child's natural demand for tenderness, on the other. Even more deleterious are sudden alternations between one extreme and the other, such as are common in neurotic parents. Sexually stimulating caresses (for instance, stroking, cuddling, fondling the buttocks), when frequently repeated may have evil results in children with an unfortunate heredity. Even immoderate kissing may, under certain conditions, pro- 1 Cf. Pfister, Ein neuer Zugang zunialtcn Evangelium, 1918, pp. 42 ct scq. MOULDING OF LOVE IN THE CHILD 355 duce an undesirable craving for kisses. Furthermore, exces- sive regard for the child's wishes and claims, exaggerated praise, and a too-speedy tendering of help in cases where the child could help itself, induce an overdevelopment of the ego complex. Thereby are aroused an insatiable hunger for attention ; disappointment when excessive claims are not satisfied ; a loss of independence ; a lack of initiative ; anger when forcible attempts are made to correct such errors ; and hostility to strangers who are less indulgent and pliable than the parents. Thanks to this last reaction, the child's ten- dency to a family-fixation is accentuated, and it becomes unable to adapt itself to the life of the wider world. In- justice, undue strictness, favouritism, etc., will all serve to increase the danger. The regulation of the Oedipus complex is unquestionably one of the most important parts of education. In order to help my readers to form an adequate idea of the Oedipus complex, I shall first allude once more to some of the cases previously mentioned, and shall then give some fresh instances. Both aspects of parental fixation were seen in the girl (pp. I2i et seq.) in whom there was a distressing sense of nullity, although she had great mental and bodily advantages, was highly cultured, had excellent aspirations, and was profoundly religious. A sexual scene with her brother had been the starting point of her broodings concerning the intimate structure of a carved ivory dog, concerning the insides of houses, etc. This scene had also given rise to her anxiety and excessive timidity, and her avoidance of boys. The analysis showed that in dreams she definitely regarded herself as her father's wife ; and there were such associations as the following : " What if I were to throw a needle into the water Mother is drinking ? " The incestuous impulse towards the brother was only an offshoot of her longing for the father. On p. 128 was the record of a lady of thirty-three who wore herself out in superfluous housework, tormented her husband and her children with hygienic futilities, and grew ever more and more miserable. The reader will recall that she had early exhibited a morbid love for her father. Was it not morbid that a girl attending secondary school should 356 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS be tortured with a longing to rejoin her father during a brief separation when she was witnessing an enjoyable play ; and was it not morbid that she should feel she could pray more fervently when she was looking at her father ? This extremely characteristic case, in which hatred for the mother is plainly disclosed, shows further that, in adults at any rate, the attitude towards the father may have a sexual undercurrent. Similar considerations apply to the case of the daughter (pp. 139 et. seq.) who was tormented with anxiety that her father was about to die. From the time this obsession seized her, her infatuation for the father grew stronger. It is probable, and will indeed seem certain to the expert, that she had already been passionately in love with her father even before his harshness had aroused the parricidal wish for which she atoned by representing herself in imagination as playing the part of Rudolf von Wart, who expiated on the wheel the murder of his emperor and uncle. In this instance, the hatred for the mother was disclosed by the dread that her death was also imminent. Hatred for the father, unquestionably the outcome of a frame of mind resembling the Oedipus complex, was noted in the case of the boy who ran away to a lonely mountain region, and subsequently felt a loathing for all mankind (p. 142). We saw the same hatred for the father in the boy who in childhood had had obsessive death fantasies con- cerning the schoolgirls that made fun of him. His impudence towards his teachers was the reflection of his hatred for his father. In his whims and fancies, which governed his choice of an occupation, he resembled his mother. Although his predominant attitude towards her was one of aversion, the dislike was the outcome of unhappy love. But in this case we cannot decide how far the grievous transition from coddling before he went to school to the withdrawal of pro- tection on entering school, served to disorder a mentality which had been previously normal; and how far the Oedipus complex was operative (pp. 143-148). The case of the youth who suffered from a fear of ghosts (pp. 148 et seq.) and who in his anxiety attacks would think that his father, or sometimes a servantmaid, was at the bedroom door, shows that injudicious treatment will aggra- vate the Oedipus complex. In later life the struggle with MOULDING OF LOVE IN THE CHILD 357 the father was obvious. We see this in the bad disposition towards teachers ; when the subject was grown up, in his attitude towards competitors ; in his persistent expectation that his wife (who in reality was sedulously regardful of his wishes) would tyrannise over him; in his demand for admiration; etc. On p. 152 was the account of the artist who betrayed in his work the most intense hostility towards persons resembling the father. Here there was a persistent war with reputed enemies, dependent upon a hostility to the father which remained active in the unconscious long after the conscious enmity had passed away. Sometimes this painter would show his affection for the mother by the effeminacy of his pictures. Hatred for the father of drunken habits was seen in the youth (pp. 157 et seq.) whose sexuality was almost exclusively directed towards little girls, and who sought a father- substitute in the priest. The important phenomenon of the conjuncture of con- scious hatred with unconscious fondness, occupied our attention in the case of the girl stammerer (p. 164) who detested her stepfather and repelled his tenderness with loathing, but who at night would run out to the umbrella- stand where the object of her enmity kept his umbrella. In the same category comes the case of the married woman (p. 167) who in childhood had been sexually mishandled by her lascivious father, but who, despite her hatred for him, had married a man of precisely similar character. Subse- quently, when she had been delivered from her afflictions by divorce, she seized the opportunity of wedding an even more offensive scoundrel. Finally, we recognised the un- conscious counter-stream of love underlying a manifest aversion in the man who, as a child, had believed himself (during a hysterical lapse of consciousness) to have been carried by angels safely past the lair of the " Bohlimann " (p. 168). In the conscious, he was on bad terms with his mother ; but in the unconscious he was greatly attached to her, and tried to be like her. Something closely akin to the Oedipus complex, which was disclosed for decades in the dreams directed towards the mother, was seen in the case of the analysand who 358 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS suffered from a paroxysm of anxiety whenever he was un- expectedly called upon to sign his name (pp. 177 et seq.). The Oedipus fixation varies in its strength, and in the intensity of the respective feelings towards the father and the mother. The course of many lives shows that the search for the mother is predominant, so that the whole existence becomes a pursuit of this unattainable object, or of some substitute. In other cases, hatred for the father and for father-substitutes is the leading passion. Sometimes, how- ever, there may be alternations between one influence and the other, as we learn from the case recorded on p. 182. Here, in boyhood, there had been an access of fierce anger against the teacher. For years thereafter, the subject was affected with a dread of burglars, and despite his best endeavours he was unable to devote his mental energies to the service of actualities. After a long persistence of hatred for the father, love for him became dominant in the con- scious ; and now the mother, who had been tenderly loved, forfeited her place in the son's affections. The extreme importance of these relationships makes it desirable that we should consider some additional material. The first example, which I take from my book Die. Behand- lung schwer erziehbarer und abnormer Kinder, illustrates with especial clarity the hatred of the father and its consequences. The case is that of an eleven-year-old boy who was sent to me on the initiative of the school authorities because he suffered from stammering, and from nocturnal and diurnal incontinence of urine. As always, it proved that these symptoms were but the most conspicuous signs of a far graver aberration. It was therefore fortunate that a course of lessons to correct the stutter did not cure the child-for had a cure been thus effected, the treatment of the deep- seated trouble would not have been undertaken. The father is a hot-tempered man who hopes to make the nervous child obey him by bawling his commands and by brutal chastisement, a form of punishment which calls forth the sympathy of outsiders for the little lad. The mother, who is reputed to have been an alcoholic, died when her only child was a year old. The baby boy was handed over to relations who treated him fairly well. But proper MOULDING OF LOVE IN THE CHILD 359 supervision was lacking, and a couple of cousins somewhat older than himself teased and tormented the little one con- tinually. When, at the end of a year, he was fetched home again he was anxious, and trembled at every trifle. I feel that it is impossible that the behaviour of the child's comrades could have made so deep an impression had it not been for the terrible scenes which had previously taken place under the parental roof. The boy was placed in the care of a kindly foster-mother, and he soon won self-confidence again. Whereas he had been held to be a dullard, he now began to develop quite delightfully from an intellectual point of view. The anxiety vanished. But he began to have fits, when he would lose consciousness and would foam at the mouth. The doctor feared it might be epilepsy. Ere long this symp- tom completely disappeared though analysis had not yet been undertaken. The child had always masturbated, and I could not learn of any period of his life when he had not given way to this habit. He was often threatened with amputation of the penis ; this aroused great fear but did not help him to throw off the compulsion to masturbation. At five years of age the child had a great fright. While bathing in the sea he was overwhelmed by a wave and believed he was going to be drowned. The father managed to rescue the boy before it was too late. The stereotyped dreams of his childhood deserve attention. For years the lad had dreamed, every few nights, that a man with a lasso in hand was standing near him ; or that he was surrounded by cockroaches, ants, or other insects ; or that a dog gobbled up his ball (a thing which had really happened once). The first dream undoubtedly refers to the father, who is far too prone to cramp the child's impulse towards freedom; the two other dreams betoken sexual trouble. Soon the child began to have hallucinations. If a light shimmered through the window-panes he would see witches, devils, and gnomes with long beards which hung down between their legs. These faces must have been evoked by erotic experiences, for as he was telling me about them he recalled that once when he was between six and eight years old he was seized with anxiety and called aloud for the nursery governess ; it seemed to him that his father's bed- 360 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS room door opened and the governess appeared. She remained standing in the doorway, and then disappeared, whereupon the boy wetted his knickers. Here are the chief associations : [The nursery governess.] Fraulein N. She came out of Father's room but did not come nearer to me. [The bedroom door.] Another nursery governess, who had a splendid ink-eraser. I broke it in half and denied I had done so. But Father found the pieces. She was very snappish. [Again the bedroom door.] I read about a witch who came out of a door in a rock and wanted to kill a boy. A girl came to his aid, and she ran away with him to a safe place. [The father's door.] Sometimes the cane he whipped me with hung there. [Again Fraulein N.] That evening I knew she was sitting with her brother, a drunken student, in an out-of- the-way room in the house and was playing. I really did scream, but they did not hear me, and they laughed at me next day when I told them about it. I told her brother that she was always pulling my hair and my ears, and he said she must not do it any more. Nothing special had happened just before the vision. One who is not a proficient in psychoanalysis might imagine that we have to do here with a kindling up of the idea, " Fraulein N. is a witch." But this surmise, besides leaving out of consideration the laws of dream formation, which are identical with those of the genesis of hallucinations, leaves unexplained an important detail of the picture. Why does Fraulein N. come out of the father's room ? Why should the anxiety experience occur immediately after the soothing intervention of the brother ? Why does the child call for her whom he hates ? These difficulties are solved when we know that the dream and the hallucination give expression to a repressed, and therefore unconscious, wish. Beyond a doubt it is of importance that the brother lingers with the nursery governess. The fact that she comes out of the father's room is probably based upon a real occurrence which has evoked the fantasy. Later on we shall have to show how frequently MOULDING OF LOVE IN THE CHILD 361 eavesdropping occasions anxiety. It is almost certain that the sight of the student and the nursery governess called up the memory of the father and another governess being together. In any case, this assumption accords with well- known psychological laws, and also with the situation of the sexually hyperaesthetic child. Fear of the strict educator calls up the witch fantasy. But the part played by erotic desire is even more important. When he was six years old the boy had a hallucination that the mother (a woman who had died five weeks earlier) of another nursery governess had sat down on his chest and he had screamed : "Go away ! " She thereupon left him and closed the room door. This nightmare caused him to wet his bed. The screaming was purely imaginary. The woman of the vision was a worthy soul who often procured the child pleasures, gave him toys, and exhorted him in motherly fashion. But the boy complained of her in the following terms : " Everything I did, she said was a sin ; and she could not understand that I wanted to be free. If I shot a fowl with my bow and arrow, she scolded me ; if I cursed, she said I would go to hell. All I was to do was to learn. Still I was fond of her in spite of her severity, for she was really awfully kind to me." One sees how the boy wishes for her presence, probably when he has done wrong ; but when she does appear, as an embodied conscience, he suffers. The need to be mishandled is clearly a factor in this child's life. Ultimately he succeeds in ridding his conscience of its burden. The embodiment of the moral law closes the door behind itself. A dream the boy had in his sixth year is worth mention- ing. The child dreamed that he cried aloud: " Fowl, Fowl, Fowl, do come here ! " The day before, he had been allowed to call a fowl in the words of the dream, and had even been permitted to slaughter the animal himself. This had given him great pleasure. (It is possible that we have here an exaggerated version of a real experience. Still, this is of little consequence, seeing that the psychological situation is just the same in either case.) The dream reveals that a sadistic delight in killing animals is present ; the fact that it recurs in the dream, shows that reality was unable to satisfy the unsavoury wish. 362 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS The boy was certainly fond of tormenting animals ; in especial he liked pulling the legs off flies, and, having placed them under a thimble, he would leave them to starve ; or he would shut them up together with wasps. The boy, who was himself so frequently mishandled, would pay his suffer- ings out on weak animals. How far his longing for torture had already become a need, and how much he unconsciously tortured himself while torturing animals, the analysis did not go far enough to reveal. One night when the governess was not sleeping in the room with him, he wished to make water. But the chamber- pot was not under his bed and he had not the courage to fetch the one which was under the governess's bed. In consternation he " scrimmaged about " in his bed (such was his phrase), crept under the blankets, rolled to the lower end of the bed, and finally, in despair, leapt out of bed and made water on the floor. An even greater dread of punish- ment was now experienced, although the day before he had said to himself that his father would not punish him again. In the morning he called out to his father that he could not sleep any more, and asked if he might get up. To his delight, the father assented ; and so the little boy, who was then about seven, thankfully removed the traces of his mishap. Sleeplessness troubled him a great deal. When lying awake he would play with his own body for hours. No doubt there was an intimate connexion between the in- somnia and masturbation. Stammering must always be regarded as a symptom of nervous anxiety. A proof that it was so in his case is that he found the word " Papa " extremely difficult to utter, and that the letter " p " in general was troublesome. He had the habit of nail-biting, and this was the outcome of the threats of castration. No educational measures availed to overcome this neurotic compulsion. When he had learned to read, a craze for reading ensued. His choice of books is interesting. He had a special taste for blood- curdling stories of Indians, such as boys usually delight in, and pore over by day and by night (cf. supra p. 226). This left him little energy to spare for his school work. The char- acters in his penny dreadfuls occupied his thoughts with the force of obsessions. In this field of the imagination he was MOULDING OF LOVE IN THE CHILD 363 no doubt taking revenge on his father and on his strict governesses ; and here he was playing the hero, whereas in real life he was kept under a tight hand and was a prey to anxiety. Rewards and punishments were unavailing, for they did not touch the root of the mischief. The consequence was that the boy seemed a dullard at school, though he was highly gifted, could express himself with the most amazing eloquence, and was able to form shrewd opinions of his elders. His insubordinate behaviour was a strange contrast to his chronic anxiety. Away from home he was impudent, quarrelsome, and audacious. One of his chief amusements was to cuff boys weaker than himself ; another was to ring door bells and run away ; another was to cheek the police. Naturally he gave a great deal of trouble to his teachers, who were the most obvious father-substitutes, the result being that his unconscious craving for punishment was fre- quently satisfied. Though a rich man's son, he had a taste for offences against property. He was continually at war with authority in all its forms. The analysis speedily gave excellent results. There was notable improvement as regards the incontinence of urine, both nocturnal and diurnal. Characteristic were the last instances of diurnal incontinence. On one of these, he wetted himself slightly in S. Street-though before he had been used to drench himself. When asked for associations with the locality, he recalled that at the same spot he had stumbled half an hour before, and had hurt his hand. Another time he had incontinence when he was bowling his hoop. Only when pressed for associations did he remember that in the same place seven weeks before, when riding his bicycle, he had swerved to let something pass, had run into a hoarding, and had had a fall. On a third occasion the incontinence troubled him when he was in a steep roadway during a rain storm, and nearly fell down. The childish terrors and anxieties had not yet been completely overcome. Unfortunately the analysis was discontinued too soon, owing to the stupidy of the woman who looked after him, though she quite recognised the improvement that had been effected. This was in the phase of marked negative trans- ference ; the distressing experiences which had been recalled to the conscious memory, which were really the outcome of 364 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS his father's behaviour, were unconsciously laid to my charge. The analyst cannot prevent such manifestations, and is indeed glad when they occur, should there be no other way of freeing the subject from the fetters of the past. But the analyst wants to have the chance of dealing skilfully with the illusions and falsifications of the transference. My crafty analysand found an adroit means of getting rid of me. The foster-mother was a devotee of a rather narrow Christian cult, and was predisposed to be suspicious of me as an ortho- dox Protestant pastor. The boy told her I had denied the existence of God. As a matter of fact we had referred to religious matters only once ; the boy, then in his twelfth year, had told me he did not believe in God, whereupon I had replied that we would discuss the matter later. The foster-mother did not make any enquiry of me, but believed what the boy had said, and withdrew him from my care. I did not learn the reason for this until too late. After a few months he was sent to a middle school. Of course he made little progress there. Soon I completely lost sight of him. I am confident, however, that even the few sittings we had were of great service to him. A stammerer aged sixteen and a half years was sent to me for psychoanalytical treatment. He was only in the third class of the secondary school, being thus backward by two years. Physically, too, he was undeveloped and was of weakly appearance. As I have invariably found in cases of stammering, there were many additional symptoms in the background, most of them hidden from the other members of the boy's family, and some of them hidden even from himself. I shall enumerate the most important of these, but shall first describe the stammer. It came on chiefly at school, and was sometimes so violent that he was quite unable to speak. On other occasions he would be able to say what he wanted after he had taken a deep breath and had stamped slightly. He had had a special course to correct his stammer, but this (as is almost invariably the case) helped him only for a short time.1 In the oral instruc- * Cf. '* Zeitschrift filr Kinderforschung," 1920.-When will this foolish method of treatment be abandoned ? How much behind the times are the so-called experts who do not know that stammering is always a symptom of some neurotic anxiety, dependent upon deep-seated complications of the MOULDING OF LOVE IN THE CHILD 365 tion, therefore, he never volunteered to speak, and in this department always made a bad showing, whereas his written work was well above the average of his class. But when he was writing, he often began to tremble. Before he went to sleep, he would have twitchings all ever the body. When he was trying to read, print and illustrations would dance before his eyes, so that he could take nothing in. Looking through a telescope induced nausea. A cold shudder would run over him when he was cutting his finger-nails, or when he saw anyone sucking the corner of a pocket-handker- chief, or even when he imaginatively visualised this pro- ceeding. He frequently suffered from lancinating pains in the occipital region. When in a crowd he was apt to feel dizzy. The same feeling of dizziness, accompanied by dread of a fall, would seize him when walking across a square paved with cobble stones. When he heard certain topics discussed he would be attacked by a violent sense of oppression in the forehead, and the same feeling would invariably trouble him when he was in a train moving fast across a bridge with a wavy parapet. He had then quickly to hide his face in his hands. The noise of hammering in workshops evoked a similar reaction. An occasional symptom was a lapse of consciousness. On one occasion when he had a cup of coffee in his hand, he suddenly lost grip of his surroundings ; he spilled the coffee, and this brought him to his senses. He would often wake up at night feeling intensely hungry. What distressed him most was the feeling of anxiety. He had a persistent dread of some one standing behind him, even when he knew that there was no one in the room. The fear of ghosts and of dogs played a part in his troubles. In his dreams he often saw people tracking him down. He disliked eating butcher's meat, and simply could not bring himself to touch fish. If his father telephoned to him, it caused a spasm of anxiety. He also suffered from anxiety when ne went to the theatre. He had a compulsive habit of scratching tables and walls sexual life or the general amatory life ; who do not know that stammering plays the part of a safety valve, as does fever in bodily disturbances-and that, like fever, it must not simply be suppressed. This matter will be further considered in the sequel. 366 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS with his finger-nails. Without obvious reason, he was con- tinually putting his hand to the back of his head. From time to time he suffered from an irresistible impulse to laugh or to yawn. On the foot-pavement he was unable to bring himself to tread on the dividing line between two curbstones. Twice he broke his arm. His will power was extremely restricted. In his seven- teenth and even in his eighteenth year he was a mere child, allowing himself (apart from a few trifling preferences of his own) to be led by his father, and taking his own lack of initiative as a matter of course. He was sick of life. We see that the stammering was no more than a minor feature of the trouble. When describing this comparatively simple case, I shall again take the opportunity of dwelling on certain details in the application of the psychoanalytic method of education, although my treatment of the matter cannot be exhaustive. Since it was obvious that the anxiety was the dominant feature of the case, at the first sitting I enquired as to alarm- ing incidents in his past life. He could tell me of nothing noteworthy. Guided by previous experience, I next asked him what were his feelings towards his father. He assured me he was very fond of his father. In earlier days, he had been afraid of his father, but was so no longer. His mother, a gentle and kindly woman, had died not long ago. He had an elder sister who would often make fun of him for his stupidity, but they no longer quarrelled. As regards his earlier history, I should mention that owing to his bodily weakness he had not been sent to the elemen- tary school until he was eight and a half years old. That was as far as we could get without psychoanalysis, and it was now incumbent upon me to learn the attitude of the subject's unconscious. I therefore enquired whether he could recall an impressive dream in early childhood, and was told that he remembered one that he had had when he was about seven years old. He described it as follows : " I am walking in one of the streets of our town. In V. Square four trams are coming down upon me from different directions. From the left there also came a milk cart drawn by two horses, and from the right a motor which ran over my head.-I felt that my hand was bleeding, and I aw'oke." MOULDING OF LOVE IN THE CHILD 367 [V. Square.] I used to go through this every day. There are lots of tram cars there. I have the feeling that I can't get safely through the crowd, and I stumble over the paving stones. [Four trams are coming down upon me from different directions.] Everything is going round in my head, I feel giddy. [From the left there came a milk cart drawn by two horses.] The driver was wearing a blue overall. He is in a rage, and cracks his whip threateningly. I can't see his face clearly. [His face.] Pale. It is the face of a fairly young man. Black hair, no beard or moustache. He is thin, of average height [His face.] He vanishes, gesticu- lating wildly. [The man.] My father. He is sitting in the driver's seat. At home we have a photograph in which he has hardly any beard and moustache. Then he was still thin and pale, after an illness. But the height reminds me of one of my teachers who was very strict. [He drove over my head.] I had an attack of giddiness there. [The motor.] It was yellow. Before the dream I used often to drive in such a car. It went very fast, and then I had an icy feeling in my stomach. [I felt that my hand was bleeding.] At that time my blood was often examined, and my hand was pricked to draw the blood. I loathed it. We see, then, that the boy felt himself to be in a situation which was typified by the confused traffic in V. Square. He felt himself menaced, and the most imminent danger came from a milk cart, the driver of which resembled the lad's father as he had been in earlier days. In avoiding this peril, he was run over ; his forehead, where the feeling of dizziness is located, being passed over by the wheels. He can still recall the loathsome memory of the blood, the thought of which awakened him in a fright. Obviously this reminis- cence arises from the frequent examinations of his blood. If we are to interpret correctly, we must know the laws of dream formation. According to the accepted doctrine, which has been invariably confirmed during the present study, a dream is not merely the expression of the extant situation of the dreamer, but serves also to depict his wishes -though the real tenour of these is often discreetly veiled. 368 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS Let me insist once more that the wish is not always for what actually happens in the dream. Far more often, indeed, the dream content is the adroit masking of a wish which the dreamer does not venture to declare openly, even to himself. For instance, to quote an example given by Freud, if a schoolboy who is not allowed to take part in a school excur- sion dreams that he and his schoolfellows are actually making the excursion, there is no distortion of the wish-and no reason for distortion. But when, in the Old Testament, Joseph dreamed of the sheaves and the stars which made obeisance to him, he was really wishing for something quite different, and his brethren and his parents were justified in their belief that he cherished ambitious desires. The correct interpretation of the dream we are now con- sidering may be expressed as follows : " Since I am greatly troubled in the medley of life, and since in especial I am threatened by my father, I should like to be run over by the motor of which I am so fond ; but, on the other hand, this bloody death is a terrible thing, and I should like to live." The conflict leads to a stagnation of the vital impulse, so that the dreamer takes flight into the waking world. Those who are unfamiliar with the laws of dream forma- tion may challenge one or another item of our interpreta- tion. As in all the experimental sciences, so in the science of dreams, an abundance of observation and experi- ment are requisite before clear notions can be gained. I cannot attempt to furnish all the data necessary for a decision in such matters. But anyone who wishes can readily investigate the subject for himself, guided by Freud's Traumdeutung or by my own handbooks.1 The dream shows us that the boy is suffering from a certain weariness of life, which we may bring into relation- ship with the image of the father as being " in a rage " ; we note that a teacher conspicuous for his strictness is con- densed with the father to form a unity. The confusion from which the boy suffers is also shown by the dream to be referable to the father. The latter is driving a cart down upon his son ; vehicles are threatening the boy from all sides. The task of the educationist is already manifest. He 1 Die psychanalytische Methode, pp. 300 et seq.; Was bietet die Psycha- nalyse dem Erzieher ? pp. 69 et seq. MOULDING OF LOVE IN THE CHILD 369 has to bring about a satisfactory attitude towards the father, who is indeed passionate, but nevertheless means well by his son. Are we simply to say : "You have no reason to be afraid of your father." That would be useless. As far as conscious judgments are concerned, the lad has for years taken a sound view ; but since early childhood the uncon- scious has been dominated by the image of a fierce and angry man ; this image continues to envelop the boy in an atmosphere of anxiety. It is necessary, therefore, to over- come the repressions ; to draw into the light of day the memories which are no longer conscious, but continue to exercise a devastating influence ; when they become con- scious, they will be deprived of their power for evil. The objection may be made : " What the analysis of the dream discloses is not particularly new." No doubt, we already suspected what has been disclosed. Dreams do not always, at the first attempt, lead us into the most secret recesses of the mind. Moreover, the question may be left open whether a far profounder meaning may not underlie our interpretation. Perhaps the dread of the father is con- nected with Oedipus wishes ? May not the wish to be run over be an atonement for a longing for the father's death ? Having merely mooted these questions, let us turn to the study of a dream related by the analysand during the second sitting. Two nights before the sitting he had had the following dream : "I saw an airplane crash, and burrow its nose into the earth. The airman was not hurt. He took his pen and wrote to his father : ' I have had a smash.' When I looked at the writing, it was full of blots, and very tremulous." [The airplane.] It was in the clouds when I first saw it. It made an uncanny noise there, like thunder. [It crashed and burrowed its nose into the earth.] I was pleased when the airplane crashed. [The airman.] A relative of mine, who was rather a bad lot, had a face like the airman's. He was not much good. [He wrote to his father.] My relative used to do that whenever he wanted money. The airman would have liked to have a new airplane. [He wrote making blots and tremulously.] That is what I do. 370 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS Manifestly the dreamer has projected himself into the airman. That is why he is pleased at the crashing of the airplane ; that is why he makes the airman write messily and tremulously, as he himself writes when he is a prey to anxiety. As in the dream first recorded, he sees himself in deadly peril, but this time he is saved, and he seizes the opportunity of the accident to try and get some money out of his father. We discern an extremely undesirable attitude towards life. Here is the root of the lack of diligence at school, and here, likewise, is a dangerous rock in the channel of our investigation. For if the youth thinks that as an invalid he will have an easier time of it, if he believes that his invalidism will enable him to extort sympathy, his lack of interest in school will extend to the analysis. A cure would be fatal to his ends. Happily it was possible to lead him to understand the error in his calculations, so that we made excellent progress, and a complete cure ensued after thirty- four sittings. I shall now recount the details of the interpretation, ignoring here, as throughout this book, all the finer ramifi- cations. The stammering was an anxiety manifestation and was closely correlated to a number of these symptoms. The father, a very highly-strung and hasty-tempered man who had himself suffered from a harsh upbringing, was well- intentioned towards his son ; but on account of scenes with his wife and likewise with his son he had reduced the child to a great state of fear. Later, the father recognised the error of his ways and guarded against giving way to his hot temper ; unfortunately the terrifying picture was already engraved on the little boy's unconscious mind. In fact even as far as his conscious mind was concerned he was afraid of his father. In the initial stages of an analysis the most honourably intentioned children almost invariably give false statements regarding their relationship to the parents. The dreams of this boy speak only too plainly of the presence of the dreaded man. The stammer was no more than the speechlessness which so often befalls a perfectly normal person when overcome with fear. The only abnormal thing was that the boy behaved as if the father were actually MOULDING OF LOVE IN THE CHILD 371 threatening him ; expressed in other words this means that the picture of the father (his imago) in the boy's unconscious was confounded with the real father at the moment. Stamping of the foot was done in imitation of the father. The fear was the expression of a negative attitude, whereas the stamping expressed the positive attitude : the young man assimilated himself to his father. Such a duplex atti- tude, which denotes antipathy and sympathy, is the rule among neurotics of this type. The patient wishes simul- taneously to flee the father and to be the father. An over-strict teacher had slipped into the father's part and had served to reinforce the repression. For this reason, speaking in school was more difficult than elsewhere. The father was not invariably the disciplinarian, and was some- times quite charming towards his son ; but the teacher never unbent. The tremulous writing arose out of precisely the same anxiety state. The familiar coincidence of stammering with other convulsive symptoms and with automatism, and the fact that stammerers can often speak quite well unless the situation is an embarrassing one, should have prevented the doctors from referring such difficulties of speech to any dis- order of the various nerves that supply the vocal organs. Writing is less frequently found wanting because it is not in such close contact with the dreaded father as is speech, through which one is in direct contact with the father. (For the unconscious, this direct contact applies to the substitute persons as well.) 1 The twitchings before he went to sleep had started three or four years previously, whereas the stammering had begun when the boy made his first attempts to speak. The twitch- ings, likewise, were an anxiety manifestation. This symptom is fairly often encountered among hysterical patients and is usually combined with the idea of falling into a chasm. I believe that the relaxation of the muscles on going to sleep is the originating stimulus. The dancing of letter-press or illustrations before the eyes, depended on reactions of a like character. The words 1 It is hardly necessary to point out that the mother and the brothers and sisters may equally well play the part of the dreaded person in the life of a stammerer. Cf. Die psychanalytische Methode, pp. 77 et seq. 372 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS and lines began to dance, just as may happen under the strain of a great fear. The nausea occasioned by looking through a telescope was referable to unpleasant scenes with the father, who was testy if the somewhat awkward boy did not immediately see the things which the father was showing him through the field-glasses. Other causes must have lain at the basis of the nausea ; but we did not seek any further. The cold shudder when he was cutting his finger-nails has a cause which every expert in the interpretation of symbols will have already guessed, and which was confirmed by direct testimony on the part of the patient no less than on that of the father. The cause was the paternal threat of castration. But the reports concerning the actual facts are contradictory. The boy says that the threat was uttered when he was lifting his little sister and had unintentionally touched her as he should not ; the mother witnessed the affair and reported it to the father who then threatened the lad with castration. The father, on the other hand, avers (and we may, I think, trust his account) that he caught his seven to eight year old son with erect penis and playing with the servant : it was then that the threat had been uttered. The analysand himself ascribes the shudder to anxiety. The cold shiver at the sight of some one sucking the corner of a pocket-handkerchief is to be interpreted in the same way. That which is illustrated in the one case by the finger-nail is in the other illustrated by the handkerchief.1 A crowd arouses anxiety because the excessively shy lad fancies himself helpless. The boy does not like walking on cobbles because they are so uneven ; besides, in places that are paved the traffic is specially thick. The specific external conditions are used as a vehicle for the expression of the anxiety which is ever on the watch for an outlet. The oppression in the forehead when certain topics were discussed had its genesis in corporal punishment inflicted by the father. The topic of the conversation reminds the lad of the whilom scene. Suddenly one day during the analytical sitting this oppression made its appearance. I made him pay particular attention to this, and asked for ' Let me remind the reader of the anxiety occasioned by rolled up table napkins (supra p. 197). Cf. Die psychanalytische Methode, p. 69. MOULDING OF LOVE IN THE CHILD 373 all the associations that occurred to him. I use a pen to take shorthand notes at psychoanalytical sittings, and I happened to have laid this down for a moment so that its point was directed towards the boy at a distance of about a yard. The association which now came was the memory of an enema which had been administered to him two years earlier. But why had this association not been aroused on any previous occasion when the pen chanced to be lying in the same position ? This time we had just been talking about his masturbation, and that was why the pen, like the finger and the pocket-handkerchief, acquired a symbolical meaning.1 The sense of pressure in the forehead, felt on bridges with wavy parapets when he was in a train crossing them at high speed, was shown unmistakably by the associations to relate to the chastisement so freely administered by his father. We can now understand why the sense of pressure disappeared when the train was going slowly or when it stopped. We can also understand why the same trouble occurred when he heard the noise of hammering. The insomnia always set in at the same hour, and was accompanied by a feeling of intense hunger. Then the boy would eat something sweet, sometimes sugar and sometimes a piece of almond cake. When he was relating this, he began to stammer once more, though in general by now his speech had greatly improved ; the recurrence of the stammer was an indication that something very distressing had to be spoken of. The fact was that after his hunger had been appeased, he used to masturbate-though not invariably. Those who are acquainted with the characteristics of neu- rotic hunger will realise that the craving for sweets represented sexual desire (vide supra p. 276). The diversion towards a symbolical substitute (sugar or almond cake, or it might be the finger or the pocket-handkerchief) sometimes sufficed to satisfy the sexual desire, but did not do so as a rule. The anxiety formed the central feature of the clinical picture. It was easy to recognise that it was dependent upon a stagnation of the love sentiment. The boy was affectionate, and wanted to love his father, many of whose ' This supposition, like the others in such interpretations, is based upon a large number of similar observations. 374 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS characteristics were attractive. He could not fail to realise that this man, who was widely respected, was very fond of him. But the father had demanded from the delicate boy far more than the latter's health and endowments enabled him to fulfil; and at an earlier date the father's notions of discipline and education had been concentrated in the use of the rod. In addition, the boy often witnessed violent quarrels between his parents. Thus the father was the un- known person who always seemed to be standing behind the boy's back ; and even when the paternal severities had been mitigated so that the son's conscious outlook towards his father had become favourable, in the child's unconscious the imago of the father was still a dread spectre. That which determines morbid symptoms is not the father as he actually is, but what the son imagines him to be. Such an image may maintain a subterranean existence long after the death of the father, or even until the death of the son. The father is the prototype of the dreams of ghosts, and the prototype of the dreaded dogs and of the people who are tracking the boy down. On the other hand the dislike of butcher's meat is as- sociated with the repression of the sins of the flesh, and is closely connected with the loathing of masturbation. The inability to touch fish is similarly determined. A fish, like a finger and like the corner of a pocket-handkerchief, sym- bolises the penis. Here we have the old self-deception. The symbol is dreaded far more than the original, although the symbol derives its meaning and energy solely from the original. This comedy is rendered possible by the trickery of the transference of affect. The intense anxiety in the theatre can be explained in like manner. The boy says : "In the theatre, when a catas- trophe happens upon the stage, it makes me shudder.'' [What sort of catastrophe on the stage ?] Maria Stuart. The part where the count kills himself just when some soldiers are going to seize him. They make rather a row. [Picture the scene to yourself.] My father was always like that. He used to stamp. For instance, when I could not do anything quickly enough at school. He would say : "You always make a mess of things.'' While saying this he would gesticulate violently. [Picture the scene to yourself once MOULDING OF LOVE IN THE CHILD 375 more.] I used to think that I could not bear to go on living if father always got into such a rage about nothing. I used to think of killing myself by throwing myself out of the window. We see that the anxiety in the theatre is really dependent upon the kinship of the scenes on the stage with the boy's wish for suicide. The scratching on tables and walls is larval masturbation. The frequent movements of the hand towards the occipital region are to protect him from blows dealt by the imaginary father. The obsessional laughter was explained by the following incident. One day he had witnessed a quarrel in another family. The mother had scolded her son, who had answered saucily that if she treated him like that, he would run away, and would never again do anything she wanted. In a rage, the mother threw something at the son, but did not hit him. The cat was so terrified that it fled from the room like a mad thing. Although the analysand knew that he was being very rude, he burst out laughing, and this entailed a scolding upon him. It is easy to understand why the lad, in general so timid, should have behaved in this unmannerly way ; and why during subsequent days he punished himself by an increase in the stammer. The boy who rebelled against what he regarded as the excessive strictness of his mother, repre- sented to our analysand the attitude which he would himself fain adopt towards his own over-rigorous father. The cat, which promptly cleared out, likewise expressed his own unfulfilled wish. Thus it was not the mere comedy of the scene, but the spectator's repressed hatred for the father, which made him behave so rudely. We have next to consider the subject's inability to tread on the dividing line between two curbstones. If he hap- pened to do so inadvertently, he was terrified lest an accident should happen. This compulsion had lasted ever since he could remember. If he pictured himself as treading on the dividing line, it seemed to him he would not be able to go a step farther. (Note the similarity with the inhibitions of speech and writing.) In his imagination he was powerless to overcome the difficulty. Directly he thought of touching the line, it seemed to him that his feet would be like lead. 376 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS And yet he felt drawn towards it. [The line.] Father, who pulls me out and helps me. I feel a twitching in the legs, such as I have before going to sleep. We realise that the gap between two curbstones is con- ceived as an abyss, which is drawing the analysand into its depths. Is this the death wish making itself felt ? But since the father pulls him out of the depths, we are more inclined to think of some moral trouble. There is something in the lad which wishes for a fall; that is why there will be a disaster if he gives way to the impulse. This latter in- terpretation seems preferable, for it is in harmony with the experience of numerous other analyses. (Cf. supra p. 305.) We are always concerned in these cases with moral bound- aries, which must not be overpassed. No one will be surprised at the infirmity of will mani- fested by a boy who was under the perpetual observation of a strict disciplinarian like the father, and who was unceasingly in a condition of dread. The weariness of life, too, was the natural outcome of the fixation on the dreaded father. How was it possible that the son should avoid suffering from self-contempt when, though he was delicate, and was affected with grave mental and bodily infirmities, the highly-gifted father wished to force the boy to become like himself. It was not necessary to push the analysis very far in order to relieve all the symptoms and arouse a healthy and cheerful will-to-live. The sexual troubles were of fairly recent date, having been noted only since the boy had been misled into the practice of masturbation. The inhibition of speech was of much earlier origin. There was no evidence of the Oedipus complex on the narrower, sexual significance of the term, for a cure resulted in about eight months, before we had made our way into the lowermost strata of the unconscious. But it is very probable that the Oedipus complex was at work in the depths. There is revelation in a dream the youth had after hearing of the murder of a married couple : " I go into the house of the victims and see a dead man lying on a dead woman." The man evokes memories of his grandfather and his father ; the woman, memories of his grandmother and his sisters. As these associations arise, he feels as if there were a veil before his eyes. The position of the two reminds MOULDING OF LOVE IN THE CHILD 377 him of an improper witticism. There can be no doubt that the boy has an unconscious wish for the death of the father and the mother, and that he regards the relationship between his parents as something unclean. But the materials at our disposal do not enable us to ascertain how long this state of mind has existed, and how far such an outlook may have been responsible for his aberrations. When the lad had been freed from his sufferings, when he had grown happy and had become animated with the most excellent aspirations, I considered that I had no right to insist upon the continuance of the analysis. In many instances the Oedipus complex obviously exists in its crudest form. I may mention the case of a girl whose parents were the incarnation of gentleness and weakness. She was a pretty little thing, who had only to wish in order to get, whilst the demands made upon her were minimal. When she was fifteen years old she began to suffer from severe dysmenorrhoea, and the medical man who was first consulted was in favour of operative measures. Fortunately, however, a lady doctor familiar with psychoanalytical methods, re- cognised the hysterical nature of the trouble. During the analysis a remarkable symptom was detected. Every few minutes there would appear on the front of the neck below the larynx a red patch rather less than half an inch in diameter. It transpired that this strange phenomenon was due to the girl's having surprised her parents in a delicate situation. The embarrassed mother had said on that occasion : " Your father has lost his collar-stud and is looking for it." This symptom always recurs in the child when the incest wish is aroused by the thought of her father or of a father-substitute. Furthermore, the hysterical collar-stud mark was only one manifestation amid a mass of similar symptoms. At the first analytical sitting there was evidence of a multitude of unconscious activities of the kind. A prolonged and laborious analysis effected a complete cure. In both sexes the Oedipus complex is a universal human characteristic. It must not be regarded as abnormal unless, thanks to repression, it undergoes fixation, and thus becomes a hindrance to development. But when this ensues, the consequences may be terrible, devastating the whole life of the individual. 378 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS The Hamlet attachment is only a special form of the Oedi- pus fixation. It arises when love and hatred are in equipoise. This inhibition, with its disastrous effects on the whole develop- ment of the individual, was manifest in the boy who liked to lie down on the ground in the attitude of the crucified, and who took delight in self-inflicted suffering (cf. supra p. 186). In this case there gradually ensued hypochondria, a sense of incompetence, well-marked incapacity for work (which could only be overcome after a violent struggle when examinations were imminent), and weariness of life. A rather tedious analysis was requisite for a cure.1 There was a conspicuous Hamlet attachment in the follow- ing case. I was consulted by a professor forty years of age whose life had obviously been dominated by opposition to the father. As a child he had found it impossible to love his father. Both the parents were mentally gifted, and they were animated with the most excellent moral principles, but their views on education were not over-wise. The father used to terrify his son by excessively severe corporal punishment, thus, as so often happens, stirring impulses which had better have been left in abeyance. Especial bitterness had been aroused in the boy's mind because he was never allowed to say a word in his own defence. Fear of punishment led him to tell a great many lies. He suffered from persistent anxiety and felt helpless. When he was about eight years old his father spanked him, and this induced marked sexual excite- ment. Thenceforward, from time to time, he would ask his schoolfellows to spank him, although he felt sure that there was something forbidden, something unlawful, about the pleasure it gave him. Despite these moral scruples, typical masochism developed. I am not certain whether masochistic desires made him draw punishment upom himself in school, but what I have often noticed in similar cases makes me think it likely, although the sexual element in the analysand's insubordina- tion remained unconscious. When he was punished before the class, his energies were paralysed ; he experienced a mental stagnation which quite deprived him of his powers of self- (c) The Hamlet Attachment. 1 The Hamlet attachment was present in many of the other cases recorded. See, for instance, pp. 121, 128, 152, 157, 168, 220, et passim. MOULDING OF LOVE IN THE CHILD 379 command, and made him " lose confidence in life." Even when he was forty years old his dreams would plainly reflect his sense of powerlessness in relation to his parents, but would show just as plainly a sexual longing for the mother and an intense hatred of the father. It will be interesting to trace the way in which these main factors influenced his development. The masochistic trend persisted. In adult life he felt the need of having himself chastised by prostitutes. Powerful sexual excitement would be aroused by reading a newspaper advertisement which seemed to offer possibilities in this direction. When he was forty, he would still dream of his mother striking him on the buttocks, this making it clear that his unconscious still longed for a re- petition of the scenes in which his unsuspecting mother had unfortunately guided his sexuality into the wrong channels. As usually happens, sadism was present as the active counterpart of masochism. Under the pretence of play, he began to maltreat his brother, experiencing pleasure when he hurt the good-humoured boy. His father died when the analysand wras about ten years old. This aroused an increased feeling of hostility. Looking at the waxen hand of the dead man, the boy, who had shown no sign of distress, said : " That is the hand which has so often beaten me." The aversion was soon transferred to his teachers, for teachers are almost invariably the butt of this sort of feeling. He loved to annoy them, and brought upon himself all kinds of punishment to which he reacted by symptoms of illness. During his years at the middle school his teachers when at odds with him, were accustomed to say : " I hope you are not going to get ill again directly ! " In his day-dreams he thought of the teachers as sadists. Soon his enmity was transferred to other persons in authority such as the police officials, and the sovereign ; and now the lad, who had been piously disposed conceived a hatred for God. Note- worthy in its bearing on the psychology of religion was the attitude towards the crucifixion. On the one hand, the thought of the cross aroused horror in his mind ; but, on the other hand he would gladly have been in Christ's place. Subsequently, down to the time of the analysis, the dislike of Christianity gained the upper hand, for unmistakable sexual excitement of a masochistic nature was linked with a believer's 380 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS absorption in the central truths of religion, and the masochistic element took the form of a blasphemous aversion. The mother towards whom he cherished secret sexual desires, the mother who believed in corporal punishment though she was fond of her children, likewise became a target for his hatred. As far as she was concerned, the development of the Hamlet attachment in the analysand was especially well-marked. Even after he was grown up, he was troubled with (to use his own phrase) carnal thoughts of his mother. While the analysis was in progress, he told me of a dream about a young girl; but instead of going on to describe the love situation, he very characteristically wandered off into a discourse upon Hamlet. Asked for associations to the young girl, he made reference, not only to a number of youthful love affairs, but also to his mother. In actual life he has always been a hesitator, one who cannot vigorously carry out his resolves, but, like Hamlet, continually evades the issues. He passed through a Don Juanist phase, and this, as I have shown elsewhere, betrays a mother fixation. Behind the various girls who are hotly desired and then deserted, lurks the mother.1 That is why the advances in love must always come from the other side, and that is why he withdraws at the least suspicion of a rival. Just as tie cannot find and cannot win the mother, so does he behave in other domains of life. His feelings are inhibited and annulled by counter-feelings. The twofold character of his feeling towards woman was shown by a re- markable symptom. Having made a love marriage in fairly mature manhood, he cannot endure his wife's kisses when she makes the first advances ; and when he says anything affec- tionate to her, he accompanies this with an automatic grimace which obviously signifies aversion. He lives estranged from reality, and though he has many talents he can never find satisfaction. Even when he was still quite a young man he suffered from a marked sense of inferiority, endeavouring to drown this feeling by bravado and by fighting duels. The inveracity of his whole life is plainly shown, likewise, by his ways of thought. Here he is wholly the Hamlet. He spends all the day pondering-with results which are far from * Cf. Die pschanalytische Methode, pp. no et seq. MOULDING OF LOVE IN THE CHILD 381 being commensurate with his abilities. He forms numerous plans, at each of which he will work for a space. Then he loses interest in the half-finished scheme, which is left to join its numberless companions in a land of limbo from which there is no resurrection. His rare moments of creative thought are attended by intoxicating excitement, and are followed by exhaustion. As a rule, his intellect moves in the sterile circles of obsessive brooding, where it has no touch with reality. Thus his thought, though logically flawless, is, in its aloofness from reality, under the sign of the introversion which trails through his life. The analysis showed that the fruitless and obsessional characteristics of his mental activity were most in evidence when a masochistic fantasy had been repressed. Our Hamlet, for instance, would picture himself as under- going a self-inflicted chastisement, or as being whipped by one of his former schoolfellows, the fantasy arousing pleasurable sexual excitement. Feeling this indulgence to be immoral, he would endeavour to expel the lustful images from his mind and to think of something else. But despite all his efforts, no useful thoughts would come ; he would be overwhelmed by a distressing sense of spiritual inertia. The field of conscious- ness would seem to him vacant. On these occasions there would appear to be an obsessional inhibition of thought; but on other occasions he would be affected by the before- mentioned inclination to sterile ponderings. While his aim was to achieve both a diversion from the sexual and a sublimation, all that he could affect was the former, without inducing any morally valuable activity of the mind. The pondering into which the energies embodied in the masochistic fantasies has been diverted, is simply a neurotic symptom ; it is not a moral functioning. This theory is confirmed by a habit which cannot be anything else but a masked compulsion. Whenever the analysand finds a greasy stain on a manuscript or on the pages of a book, it is his habit to cut out the stained part. He tells himself that decency demands this from him. One of the determinants of the practice was a statement he had read to the effect that sexual misconduct runs through the lives of many persons like a grease-stain. We see that the cutting out of the stained portions, like the washing mania of Lady Macbeth and so many sufferers from obsessional neurosis, 382 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS is to effect a symbolical removal of the contamination, which is irremovable in the world of reality. Thus our Oedipus and Hamlet developed unhappily in various respects, and squandered the major portion of his working energies and his joy of life. A fragmentary analysis brought about notable improvement, so that his existence underwent a considerable change for the better. His love became genuine, free from vacillations and from the suspicion that people were looking down on him or wanted to snub him ; his thoughts came into vigorous contact with reality ; he lost his fussy and affected mannerisms ; he lost his jealous sense of self-importance ; and he became a simple, amiable, and warm-hearted being. In the sequel, his whole demeanour was changed for the better. The reader will no doubt pardon me for having transcended the limits of childhood in my desire, by the description of this case, to help him to an ade- quate understanding of the Hamlet attachment. This was a Hamlet whom undue severity had driven out of the realm of reality. I have now to describe a Hamlet of another kind. A man of thirty-seven comes to me to be analysed. He has been unable hitherto to concentrate upon one task in life and oscillates helplessly between one activity and another. Now he will paint; now he will play the role of an inventor, though none of his undertakings have ever borne fruit; or again he will hurl himself into the realms of imaginative crea- tion only to swing back into the field of the physical sciences. He never applies himself resolutely to anything, and so he falls between two stools. Meanwhile he is tormented with all kinds of anxieties : in the bedroom ; in the dark ; in the bath ; in empty houses ; in full halls ; on the stairs ; on steep paths ; about cows, draughts, a table napkin, an umbrella ; at his own shadow ; over a problem ; and so forth, and so on. Added to these are bodily symptoms such as palpitation, breathlessness, difficulty in swallowing (dysphagia), ringing in the ears, cold shivers, a sense of weight on the shoulders. The most impor- tant symptoms, however, are incapacity for work, and anxiety. The parents were gifted and amiable people. The father was a very capable and successful manufacturer ; he only found real satisfaction, however, in artistic pursuits or research work, though in neither of these fields did he get beyond the stage of amateur ; in the later years of life he could no longer MOULDING OF LOVE IN THE CHILD 383 carry on his profession owing to chronic ill health. The mother was a cheerful and warm-hearted woman, and had the talent of gathering around her persons with artistic and intel- lectual attainments. Her love, unfortunately, took a fussy form. Siegfried, the man whose case we are studying, was the second of three sons. He had an undisguised aversion for the brother who was five years his junior. A fact which wrought upon him unfavourably was that the mother often had him in bed with her and he would see her then half naked ; also he witnessed his father performing his ablutions. Masturba- tion began at this period. He once complained to his nurse that he had an itch in the genital region, and forthwith began to scratch. The nursemaid and the cook sniggered, and the child was left marvelling. Moreover, the nurse was foolish enough to tell the child uncanny stories, especially tales about strange monsters and about sorcerers. The tales must have had all the more detrimental an effect because of the damming- up of the sexual impulses. Sexual fantasies awoke in the boy's imagination and made him suffer greatly. He was rather delicate, and the mother plagued him about taking care of his health ; he must not catch cold, and must see to it that no other untoward thing should happen. In spite of all, he grew into a jolly little fellow ; and was even cheeky, assured, and plucky in relations with his comrades. In secret, however, he had suffered, ever since his sixth year, from the anxiety that he would fall backwards when climbing a mountain. On such expeditions he would cling to his com- panions, and could only crawl forward with difficulty. When coming down the mountain, on the other hand, he would conduct himself in the most foolhardy manner. When he was ten years old he shot an arrow at his younger brother and the missile stuck in the little boy's temple. From this we may infer that there was repressed hatred for the younger child (vide supra p. 201). From his twelfth to his thirteenth year, he attended a dancing class ; this procured him real pleasure. But soon the girls became objects of unclean fan- tasies during which he played an inspectionist part. He went to boarding-school at the age of thirteen, and there he succumbed to excessive masturbation and for a long time did it every day ; his action was followed by violent contrition. The cheeky youngster now became a jaded poltroon, and his 384 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS will power completely collapsed. The need for passivity had a religious complexion : " Seeing that God attends to every- thing, I need not bestir myself." Towards the end of his second year at boarding-school a comrade told him that masturbation destroyed a person physically and mentally. In consternation he broke the habit almost immediately, only to fall into deeper tribulation. At first the sexual stagnation led to the development of a wealth of artistic fantasies, which were fostered (during an absence of the parents) by the adulation of an elderly serving- woman. But when it was decided to send the boy to a paint- ing school, the springs of artistic creation suddenly dried up. This fantasy was replaced by an obsessive impulse to fling himself out of the window or into the water ; and the new incubus monopolised his psychic energy. At sixteen he returned to the Modern School and suffered a substantial aggravation of his general symptoms. He be- came affected with arhythmia cordis (his father suffered from the same trouble) ; his will power grew ever weaker ; he had the obsession, " I cannot take care of myself." At this period he wrote a melodrama entitled ''The Brothers." The hero wishes to steal the bride from his brother and stabs him by mistake. In the bride's personality we have no difficulty in detecting the mother ; the associations prove, in addition, that we have in the rival not only the brother but also the father. In the subsequent years the youth's state went from bad to worse. A return to an artistic career led to fresh dis- appointment. The father died when Siegfried was twenty- five years of age. Without ever losing sight of the importance of moral ideas, the father had been unstinting in his friendliness and goodness towards the son. It is a remarkable fact that the son felt no deep emotion in the presence of his father's body. No change occurred during the following years. He lived in a twilit land of dreams without ever having the urge to energetic endeavour ; he drifted aimlessly, without taking any joy in life ; he had a profound self-contempt and could see no meaning in existence. He repeatedly sought happiness in love ; but his unconscious made him behave in such a manner that no response was possible from the object of his affections. At length he succeeded in winning the friendship of a woman, who was likewise a prey to severe inhibition of MOULDING OF LOVE IN THE CHILD 385 the will and other neurotic disabilities. Through her endow- ments, her delicate sensibilities, and, above all and unawares, through the magic of her neurotic kinship with himself, he won her love after many years of friendly acquaintanceship and in spite of the most stubborn internal opposition. Marriage, however, brought no deliverance. It was the pressure of outward circumstances which compelled him to adopt a regular occupation. He had no zest for his work, allowed his partner to tell him what to do, and tired very readily. The morbid symptoms continued, although husband and wife respected and loved one another. Their relationship was mainly platonic. In his dreams, the father and the mother frequently appeared in a hostile role-especially the father, who, more- over, was repeatedly killed in the dreams, or was dreamed of as dead. Dreams of the mother's death, likewise, betrayed a repressed wish ; and at a later date there were similar dreams of the wife, who in the unconscious was a mother-substitute. Before the marriage, when he had been tormented with ir- resolution, he had often thought: " If she were to die, it would save me the trouble of making up my mind." Then he would be seized with dread lest she should die, and this was something more than a self-inflicted punishment, for in addition it un- doubtedly concealed a death wish (supra p. 141. Cf. also Die ftsychanalytische Methode, pp. 63 et seq.). On one occasion, when she was ill and he was with her, he happened to have a knife in his hand for some purpose, and the thought came into his head : " What if I were to stab her ? " When I was unravelling the antecedents of such episodes, I learned that, from his sixteenth year until quite recently, at the close of erotic fancies he would picture to himself women having their bellies ripped up ; or that criminals about to be executed were compelled to have intercourse with a woman who was subsequently ripped up. Asked for associations to the woman and the criminals, the thought of his father and his mother immediately came into his mind. He still has dreams in which a woman-his mother, of course-is delivered of a child by caesarian section. This dream discloses his hatred for his mother and his younger brother. But underlying the enmity is an urgent longing to possess the mother, and his inability to gratify the longing is the cause of the hatred. Such a causal relationship is common in these cases. 386 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS The father has another part to play besides that of the malevolent pursuer. The analysand is subject to an obsessive day-dream, which is so vivid as almost to deserve the name of hallucination. He is pursued by a skull, sometimes human and sometimes that of an animal, with a terrible hole in the middle. The associations relate to the father, who often mani- fests himself in an animal dress. The son has a repressed wish to cut off the father's nose. Further associations show clearly that underlying that desire is a wish to castrate the father. After this had been brought to light, although I had made no suggestions whatever, in the subject's day-dreams, though the skull continued to appear, there was now no hole in it. As a counterpart to the numerous sadistic fantasies, he had the idea : "I might be put on the rack. How terrible it would be. I could never bear it." I will now give some of the leading points in the explana- tion. It is obvious that the subject's attitude towards father and mother lies at the core of the symptoms. We can infer with the utmost confidence that in early childhood, when sharing his parent's bedroom, he had watched them in the act of intercourse. Hence had arisen an uncontrollable hatred of the father, despite the latter's kindly and affectionate dis- position ; and there had also ensued an ardent longing to take his father's place with the mother. (It is this last feature of the Oedipus complex which seems so remarkable to the novice in psychoanalysis.) The various forms of anxiety are de- pendent upon the repression and stagnation of these incestuous desires. The repressed wishes make the son regard the father as his persecutor. In students' slang, and indeed in many other argots, " mountain-climbing " (Bergsteigen) is a meta- phor for the male partner's contribution to the act of sexual intercourse.1 The same considerations account for the anxiety in the bedroom, in the dark, in the bath (where he is undressed), upon stairs and steep paths ; also for the anxiety connected with rolled table napkins and with umbrellas.3 1 In many neurotic patients accesses of anxiety arise during the act of climbing. Cf. Die psychanalytische Methode, p. 71 and p. 86. * It is well-known that in dreams, anxiety states, and other manifesta- tions of the unconscious, a rolled table napkin or an umbrella may represent a sexual object. Cf. supra p. 197 (table napkin), p. 372 (pocket-handker- chief). MOULDING OF LOVE IN THE CHILD 387 In the matter of choosing an occupation, the son mimics the indecision of the father. Unfortunately the patient had to leave before the analysis had been completed, though considerable improvement had by this time been secured. Innumerable sufferers from obsessive fantasies, persons who find it impossible to concentrate their attention, sufferers from paralysis of the will (supra p. 296), spineless individuals -are brothers to Hamlet. They can never concentrate their energies for the vigorous pursuit of some great aim in life.1 They pass through the world as dreamers or ponderers, and their only real interest is in themselves. They make a push, now in one direction and now in another, but anyone who is acquainted with the working of their unconscious knows that all these efforts are futile. Falling victims to the cunning of their paralysed unconscious, they always bring it to pass that the enterprise is shipwrecked, and secure a fresh confirmation of the conviction : " I can do nothing ; I am only a toy in the hands of fate, a useless and forsaken wretch whose plans invariably come to naught." Choice of occupation, removals from place to place, friendships, and all other activities, are futile because they are unconsciously falsified. Ultimately, those thus afflicted surrender to passivity, which they deck with the cult of a self-pity which is sometimes open and is sometimes masked behind vainglorious assertions that all is vanity. Hamlets of this type are even more unhappy than the perfectly inert ones. We may apply to them the simile coined by Luther to describe kindred psychological facts, and say that they resemble mills that are grinding without grist and are simply wearing away the millstones. We have already studied the outcome of their autistic activities (supra pp. 268 and 325). Many give themselves up to cogitations which are valueless in the world of reality, either because they are void abstractions or because they are enwrapped in futile formulas. We know that these fantasy- mongers and ponderers are persons who have fled out of real life, and are seeking a substitute in the domain of their anaemic 1 Cf. Freud, Die Traumdeutung, pp. 181 et seq. ; Ernest Jones, Das Problem des Hamlet und der Oedipus-Komplex, 1911; Otto Rank, Das Inzest- Motiv. 388 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS fantasies. Here they rule among the shadows as world creators, or as the architects of a lilliputian universe, luxuriat- ing in their spurious activities-until they are forced at long last to return to the world of reality, where they are horrified at the recognition of their own utter incapacity and use- lessness. It is impossible to give space for the study of the manifold varieties of the Hamlet attachment. Enough to reiterate, as a concluding word, that in these Hamlets, likewise, behind the conscious relationships to the parents there lurks an un- conscious relationship, and that this latter is the decisive factor. One who has a well-marked Hamlet attachment can be helped just as little by severity as by kindness, gifts, praise, etc. The would-be deliverer must voyage into the subter- ranean recesses of the mind if he wishes to set the captive free. No attentive reader of the New Testament can have failed to notice how much Jesus had to say as to the need for breaking away from the parents. (Cf. Mark iii, 31-35; Matthew x, 21; Matthew x, 35-37 ; Matthew xxiii, 9 ; Matthew xix, 5 ; Matthew xix, 29; Luke x, 59-60; Luke xiv, 26.) It is obvious that so outstanding a psychologist and psychotherapist as Jesus, whom we have to thank for having brought deliver- ance from mental slavery and for having filled life with its supremest content, could not fail to recognise the connexion between spiritual serfdom and a parent-fixation. We cannot here follow him further into the profound psychology wherein he advocates the love of our heavenly father that we may be freed from enslavement to the earthly father. Living among people whose parent-fixation had made them a prey to the neurotic obsessions of a legalist religious orthodoxy, he had ample opportunity of noting the disastrous effects of such a fixation upon the mind of the masses. He saw that freedom could only be secured by a new attitude towards the problem of parent and child, and that there would then ensue a loftier and purer affection for the earthly parents as well.1 In the name of his religion, Jesus voiced a fundamental demand of human nature. The fulfilment of this demand is (tZ) The Breaking Away from the Parents. ' Cf. Pfister, Ein never Zugang zum alten Evangelium. MOULDING OF LOVE IN THE CHILD 389 extremely difficult, and Jesus helps us towards a conscious mastery of the requisite conditions, doing so in a manner that makes admirable allowance for the working of psychological laws. One of the most difficult among the problems which have to be solved during the formation of an effective indi- viduality is, for every one of us, the breaking away from the parents in order to secure a higher union with them. The formative factors of love in children cannot be rendered intel- ligible without a brief discussion of this matter. Normally, the love of the child for its parents may be graphically represented by a curve which rises during the first years of life quickly to a considerable height ; during the period of puberal development, and usually till towards the middle twenties or later, it declines ; then a renewed rise takes place. Parents are often saddened when they note a certain cooling in their children's affection, and they come to regard the children as ungrateful. They reproach their sons and their daughters ; are jealous of playmates ; and take revenge by displaying coolness and even positive hostility, this being the most foolish thing they can possibly do. Sensible parents will say to themselves that what they are watching is nothing more than a necessary process of breaking away, and that without this there could be no healthy development of individuality. If the peculiarities of each individual are to undergo normal development, the absolute authority of the parents must be undermined. Should the parents resist their discrowning, they are not only displaying their ignorance of psychology and giving proof of lamentable selfishness, but they are intensifying the conflict and are rendering it unlikely that their children will return to them in the spirit of a loftier affection, based upon freedom. Grave as are the mistakes of parents in their treatment of little children, perhaps their errors towards their adolescent offspring are even more frequent and more disastrous. Mothers, in especial, to whom married life has brought less than they had hoped as far as the relationship to the husband is concerned, are apt to do their utmost to keep their sons under the spell of exaggerated demands for affection, and to render the natural breaking away a very difficult matter. How many a lad has been wrecked upon this shoal. How often does a youth be- come a fanatical enemy of all authority, a refractory scholar, 390 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS a discontented employee, an undisciplined soldier, a rabid anarchist, simply because he has not been able to break away from the father and then rejoin himself to the father by his own free initiative. How many have unconsciously devoted their lives to paying out the father and to getting the better of the father? Such a one is acting in the spirit of little Fritz who, as described by Freud, defiantly said : "It will serve Father right if I get ill and die ! " Psychoanalysis is con- tinually showing us that those who are the fiercest in their rejection of the father, are really the most dependent upon him. In many cases the unconscious is still filled with ardent love when the conscious know's no sentiment but hatred, so that all the happiness of life may be ruined by the unwitting urge to pay out the father, to outdo him, to oppose him, to vex him-perhaps long after the father is dead and buried. These immoral wishes of the unconscious may be atoned for by severe self-inflicted punishments, which in turn may induce grave aberrations. In the case of many persons who seem the victims of persistent ill-luck, psychoanalysis shows plainly that they are maladroit penitents ; and that in many instances suicidal thoughts (ranging from trifling fancies to irresistible impulses), are only atonements for repressed death wishes.1 Of course all this is only discovered by means of a thorough analysis, for the dependence upon a hated father or upon an unsuccessfully loved mother usually undergoes the strongest repression-and even if the feeling of dependence should re- main in the realm of the conscious, the forbidden counter- feeling in the unconscious lies deeply buried. The breaking away from the parents begins to be strongly manifested at the onset of puberty, that is to say, for the peoples of Middle Europe, at about the fourteenth year in girls and at about the fifteenth year in boys. This also corresponds to the period when psychical conflicts are so apt to arise. In the course of a few months or years, should circumstances be unfavourable and the breaking away from the parents and the transference of interest to members of the opposite sex not take place, such conflicts may lead to neuroses and psychoses. Wise parents, will watch for every sign of the need for breaking away and, by means of psychological insight, and an appropriate slackening 1 Cf. Ueber den Selbstmord, insbesondere Schtiler-Selbstmord, Diskussionen des Wiener psychoanalytischen Vereins, I, 1910. MOULDING OF LOVE IN THE CHILD 391 of the reins which shall be neither too precipitate nor too slow, will take every precaution to guard against engendering con- flicts in their children. They will not keep their children from mixing freely with other comrades, by imposing the harsh chains of family ties upon refractory desires, thereby arousing disdain for the opposite sex and conjuring up the demon of hate. Such parents will realise that it is precisely the noble natures, combating the hatred within them and thus repressing it, which have most to suffer from this unconscious hatred ; whereas the poor in feeling and conscienceless souls get oft lightly. Thoughtful parents will not make use of the com- mandment. " Honour thy father and thy mother," in order to ruin their child and to strangle its impulse to independence. However, I will not insist further upon these pedagogical issues. I have no intention to describe in detail the influence of the parents. The task of following up the excellencies or the dangers inherent in one or other father or mother type is a most alluring one ; in especial it would be interesting to trace out the influence upon the child when the parents are of con- flicting types. The plan of this book, however, only permits me to indicate a few general facts which appear to me to be of peculiar importance. Systematised works always produce an impression of aridity. Many readers will have realised what an amazing plenitude of the most varied manifestations is hidden behind the captions of the different sections of this work. There is no need to emphasise the fact that it is im- possible fully to grasp the course of an intellectual development (fraught as such a development is with an incalculable quantity of inner or creative impulses and of outer or, as one might say, mechanical impulses) by means of a few paltry principles and concepts which we bring into the limelight. But even if the profoundest powers of the soul constitute an insoluble mystery, and even if an adequate notion of an individual mind can never be secured by fitting it into the framework of a psycho- analytical systematisation (which is, after all, a bed of Pro- crustes !), nevertheless, we shall do well to store the modest fruits of the New Psychology in our poorly filled garners. Let us be grateful if a few of life's troubles are dispersed, without making recriminations because every riddle is not solved ; and let us not expect that the psychological work which we 392 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS have here undertaken can enable us to pass a judgment upon the value and the virtue, upon the truth and the greatness, of every love function, beginning with the infant at the breast and reaching up to the Olympian heights of genius ! 2. The Influence of Other Persons. The only child is beset with dangers ; it is so easily over- fathered and over-mothered ! The parental heart is usually too rich to regulate the' dose of tenderness, understanding, and guidance. In especial, when the marriage does not con- tent the two partners, the child comes in for an overplus of feeling. That which would have sufficed to the needs of husband or of wife and a whole troup of children, is utilised for a single child ; the blessing is unduly concentrated. We have likewise noted that love for the ego, narcissism, takes possession of the unhappy little creature, and that a subtle but dangerous egoism flourishes under the flag of innocent parental love. An over-educated child, one that is mothered to an extreme, becomes accustomed to this superabundance and looks upon it as a chartered right. The thought never crosses its mind that, in return, it should display an abundance of affection for its parents, and that this should take a practical form. Thus the only child of extremely affectionate parents runs the risk of becoming an egoist, of grossly overestimating its own importance, of making excessive claims for attention and regard, and of allowing itself to be kept perpetually in leading strings. From the earliest years there develops an unwholesome parent-fixation, which is antagonistic to the growth of a proper love sentiment in the child. Should life fail to gratify these wishes and claims, the child will be apt as it grows up to shelter itself behind the parents, to find contact with the environing world difficult, and to become unduly introverted. Sometimes it may grow quite unfitted to comply with the demands of reality. Conversely, if the parents, and especially the mother, should fail to show the right sort of love (as often happens in the case of illegitimate children, or when the love is transferred from an unloved husband to the child), an only child will be (a) Influence of Brothers and Sisters. MOULDING OF LOVE IN THE CHILD 393 in a very difficult position. The parents will not be its play- mates and friends. Even when they earnestly endeavour to guide their conduct rigidly by the categorical imperative of Kant, this devotion to duty can never compensate for the lack of love, and the scorching aridity of a moral code which knows nothing of affection will often manifest itself with tragi- cal intensity. How enormously greater, alike from the ethical, psychological, and biological point of view, Jesus was than the noble-minded but narrow sage of Kdnigsberg, is made manifest by the study of an only child which grows up under the sign of a loveless " thou shalt." The stagnation of the natural love need gives rise to a sour, over-rigorous, and joy- less disposition, to a rigidity of character, to an excessive veneration for authority, to repressed hatred, and to a difficulty in breaking away from the parents in order to secure a higher and freer affection for them. Often it engenders grave neurotic disorders. An only child must in general be regarded as at a disadvan- tage. I fully agree with what Lhotzky says about this matter in his splendid little handbook Die Seele deines Kindes. It is specially deplorable when the child has no playmates of its own age. Being surrounded by adults, such a child has no proper standard by which to measure its own performances, and is therefore continually being made aware of its own weak- ness. Its thoughts become precocious, unless it grows afraid to think for itself at all after the manner of a natural child. Being too much with grown-ups, it becomes unable to adapt itself properly either to children or to elders. Great difficul- ties are apt to arise over the passage from the narrow confines of the home into the outer world. Even a brief stay among strangers for a holiday may prove intolerable because the child is devoured by home-sickness. This is already an indication that the danger of an undue parent-fixation is imminent. Often such children develop grave positive and negative love-fixation and hate-fixation, which culminate in neurosis. Should no successful issue for the love sentiment be secured outside the home, a sense of injury will arise, and this is apt to find expression either in a shy reserve or in an impudent demeanour. Wise educationists, who recognise the child's right to take pleasure even in the least of its creative activities, and to win appreciation for any progress however small, may 394 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS be able to minimise some of these dangers, but they cannot replace for the only child the influence of other children. But dangers threaten even within the little circle of the multiple family. The first to learn this is the eldest child, upon whom the birth of the second child already imposes a demand for adaptability-a claim that is not always met. Hitherto the first child has been an only child, and has occupied the centre of the picture, but is now suddenly thrust to one side. Its mother is taken away from it, and every one in its little circle is fussing round its newborn rival. Need we be surprised that jealousy and hatred surge up in the elder child's mind ? The greater the difference of age between the two children in such cases, the greater the danger. If we find that the eldest of the family is disagreeable and domineering to- wards its brothers and sisters, we cannot doubt that one factor in arousing this tendency must have been the sense of being set aside for the later arrivals. In addition, an elder girl is often inspired with a sexual envy of her little brothers. Psychoanalysis frequently discloses the regrettable after- effects of such a frame of mind, and it is easy to realise how educators should endeavour to counteract these undesirable tendencies. The less the child is led, when other children arrive in the family, to regard itself as a discrowned monarch whose kingdom of love has been snatched away or at least diminished, and the more it can be taught to value the advantages of having a little brother or sister, the easier will be the adaptation. Dr. Hermine Hug-Hellmuth has based upon ripe experience an admirable study of the middle child.1 Such a child has a sense of injury, now towards its elder brother or sister, now towards its younger brother or sister, and there often arises a conscious or repressed wish such as once came under the notice of Dr. Hug-Hellmuth herself : " How nice it would be if I or one of the others were not here ; then we should be only two, and it would be all quite different." 2 The sense of being thrust into the background is apt to grow in the middle child as the years pass, but as far as my own observations go this growth continues only till the attainment of sexual maturity. In the case of the middle child, likewise, a considerable differ- * Vom mittleren Kinder, " Imago," vii, 1921, pp. 84 et seq. • Op. cit., p. 92. MOULDING OF LOVE IN THE CHILD 395 ence in age among the children of a family is apt to make matters worse. The youngest child will readily find itself in the position which the writer of the story of Joseph in the Old Testament has described with so much psychological insight and in a manner so true to life. The " baby " is spoiled by the parents, and is therefore envied and spited by the elder children-in Joseph's case by his brethren.1 The danger is even greater in the case of an " after-thought," a youngest child born after a very long interval. Sometimes such a child, unwanted alike by the parents and by the elder children, is regarded with dislike as an interloper. As a rule, however, such an " after-thought " is an especial pet, and the delicacy thus induced is often exaggerated by constitutional delicacy. The story of Joseph gives us valuable hints concerning the favourite child. In the case of such favourites there is enhanced danger of parent-fixations and of neuroses. The clash against society, regarded as inimical, begins already in the home, and thereby the child is thrust back upon its parents. It often comes to depend for the gratification of its desires upon cajolery, the extortion of sympathy, cunning, detraction, and calumny, instead of upon honest endeavour. It draws upon itself the wrath of the less favoured children and of its play- mates, and is always on the look-out for parent-substitutes who may help it out of difficulties without any exertion on its own part. Conceit alternates with a sense of being slighted. The sense of justice is poorly developed. If a transference of the love sentiment to parent-substitutes cannot be effected, a misanthropic disposition is likely to arise. Finally we have to consider the Cinderella types. Nothing is so depressing to the sense of self-respect as the feeling of being loved less than others, or not at all. If the affections cannot find any substitute object, they remain concentrated upon the ego, or return to the ego after unsuccessful direction ' In the story of Joseph, moreover, we find an admirable indication of the way in which the love for a partner in marriage is transferred to a child. The observation has been confirmed innumerable times. Jacob, again, is a classical instance of the way in which a child will try to make itself like or unlike its father, so that it may experience the lot which the father experienced in his childhood, or the opposite. Jacob's father Isaac had made a favourite of Esau, and Jacob exhibits the same tendency to favouritism in his love for his children. To the detriment of the older children Jacob makes a pet of the youngest-Joseph at first, and then Benjamin. 396 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS outwards. The ego expands to monstrous proportions, whilst the tu atrophies in the Cinderella's spirit. The possibilities are those which we have often encountered in other types of introversion. Behind the self-depreciation in the conscious, there is hidden in the unconscious an excessive valuation of the ego, which seeks encouragement in dreams, fantasies, and outbursts of temper. In pathological cases, and under the influence of certain exciting causes, it may make its way into the conscious more or less plainly in the form of megalomania. On the other hand, a domineering disposition may conceal a secret sense of poverty, which may be either conscious or unconscious. Repressed arrogance, like a repressed feeling that one is of no account, is apt to draw into its vortex the opposite trend in the conscious, and thus the love sentiment ranges from one extreme to the other. Sometimes, again, in these Cinderella types, the love for neighbours may display itself with remarkable intensity, making of the person thus affected a miracle of benevolence. Those with such a dis- position are monuments of the divinely creative power of love. (b) Influence of other Persons. The fundamental trends towards imitation, on the one hand, and self-differentiation, on the other, secure expression outside the family as well. All love and all hatred are related in one way or another to the attitude which has been assumed towards the first objects of love and hatred, and are thus derivative. There is a law of association in accordance with which the content of every new experience is brought into relationship with prior experiences of a like or contrasted kind, and the law makes its influence felt throughout the mental life. In default of this principle, there would be no such thing as recognition-indeed there would be no knowledge at all, no coherent individual life. Our feelings, no less than our ideas, are brought into relationship with correspondent earlier experiences. In later life we cannot have a single feeling which is not, in part, determined by the feelings of the first stages of life. It is because of this continuity of experience that it is so important for a child's attitude towards father and mother and towards brothers and sisters to assume a favourable complexion. We have seen how apt the individual is to project the first human beings of his environment into MOULDING OF LOVE IN THE CHILD 397 all those with whom he subsequently comes in contact, and to assign to the latter feelings that were primarily supposed to be characteristic of the former. The stronger the parent- fixation, the cruder may be these translations of personality. Even the justest and wisest of human beings cannot think and feel in a purely objective fashion-without any transplantation of thoughts and feelings which either seemed proper to the thinker's parents or were contrasted with those characteristic of the parents. In a certain sense all human beings, our brothers and sisters not excepted, constitute for us, as it were, parent-substitutes of a positive or a negative kind. As a rule, however, we do not employ the terms father-substitute and mother-substitute unless the father as a whole or the mother as a whole has, consciously or unconsciously, been projected into the sub- stitute individual, in such a manner that the projector believes himself to rediscover in the substitute the leading traits of the father or the mother. For children, these parent-substitutes are usually adults- servants of the household, teachers, uncles and aunts, neigh- bours, etc. In some cases, however, a brother or a sister may assume the parental role. In many instances, some similarity of voice, feature, or bodily demeanour, may induce the uncon- scious translation of personality, and may make a child endow some other individual with thoughts and feelings which really belong to one of the parents. The illusion may be the work of a few seconds. A child will only just have become acquainted with a new teacher, and will already have made up its mind. One member of the class will hate the teacher, without being aware that the hatred has been evoked by some resemblance to the father ; and another member of the class may be devoted to the same teacher for an identical reason. Both are led by the unconscious. " Love at first sight " is determined by like causes. That is why such an idol has feet of clay, and can be readily overthrown if in the object of adoration there should now become apparent marked contrasts with the father or the mother. But there may be a transference of affect con- ditioned by a real similarity in important characteristics. If the love for one or other parent, or for both (for the transference of affect to a new person may take place from the father and the mother jointly), has been established on firm foundations, 398 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS if there has been no unconscious counter-impulse, and if the father and the mother have been all that the child could wish, there are good reasons for hoping that the new love will be lasting. Even if its determinants be disclosed by psycho- analysis, this will serve merely to fortify the affection. A transference which gives rise to a new affection may be based upon a genuine love for parents and for brothers and sisters. In that case, the new affection will be strong and will ring true, but it will never be fanatical or violent. On the other hand, the transference may be effected in order to find compensation for the lack of love towards the parents. When a teacher is overwhelmed with manifestations of affection by one of his pupils, he may infer with confidence that the latter has an unsatisfied craving for parental love. He will meet the young enthusiast's advances in friendly fashion ; but will see to it that the enthusiasm does not degenerate1 into sterile sentimentality, and will endeavour to ensure that it shall become a source of moral energy and activity. Were he bluntly to repel the proffered affection, he would probably induce a dangerous introversion. The transference of dislike may also be a direct or an indirect transplantation. A dislike for the father or the mother may be projected upon an innocent person ; or an individual may be regarded with hostility simply because he occupies a position akin to that of the father or the mother, without possessing the characteristics of either parent. In this manner the best of teachers may become the object of dislike. Such a teacher may greatly excel the father in his intelligence and in the wealth of his sympathies, but may be depreciated by the pupil, and in circumstances which we cannot now discuss may become a target for hatred (vide supra Chapter Ten). Apart from this relationship to the father or the mother, there are, of course, other ways in which an individual may influence the development of the love sentiment in a child. Perhaps these relationships do not always account for the most notable ways in which a child reacts. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that a child will invariably endeavour, unconsciously at any rate, and less often consciously, to establish a quasi-filial relationship in the sphere of thought and feeling. But there are innumerable causal factors of a different kind. Have these other persons in the child's MOULDING OF LOVE IN THE CHILD 399 environment been helpful or the reverse ? Has their influence been exercised for good or for evil ? Such influences outside the home may be very powerful. We read in the New Testa- ment : " Evil communications corrupt good manners." But where there is a sufficiently strong tie with parents who stand on a high moral plane, even bad influences may be powerless for evil. Bad influences are omnipresent; and one who is driven towards them by his unconscious, will become their prey. Abraham has shown, and his observations have since then been abundantly confirmed, that girls who have been raped have often unconsciously incited to the crime.1 In many instances we have the impression that the strongest positive or negative influence has not been exercised either by the father or the mother, but by some other person whose qualities were such as to exercise more power over the child's peculiar aptitudes. We must never lose sight of these mys- terious possibilities. A playfellow, a teacher, a friend, a poet, a religious writer, who has no notable relationship to the father or to the mother in respect either of likeness or of unlikeness, may greatly affect a child's development. Parents, of course, are only too apt to refer all their children's most agreeable characteristics to home influences, while supposing that the less amiable traits are the result of extra-domestic influences ; and they invariably imagine, in the case of evil practices, that their own children must have been seduced, and can never have been the seducers. These convictions are the outcome of the familiar mechanism of projection, and of a human, all- too-human vanity. 1 Abraham, Klinische Beitrige zur Psychoanalyse, 1921, pp. 9 et seq. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO THE INFLUENCE OF SPECIAL EXPERIENCES AND CYCLES OF EXPERIENCES i. Preliminary Considerations. Life is exposed to so inexhaustible a wealth of influences that it is impossible even to think of giving an adequate description of them all. I must, therefore, confine myself to a small selection of examples. Moreover, I have chosen only those cases that appear to me especially important and a knowledge of which seems peculiarly necessary. Should anyone feel prompted to accuse me of arbitrariness in my choice, I can only answer that my book does not pretend to any systematic completeness. Every experience is the outcome of an influence acting upon the subject, and of the subject's reaction thereto. This applies just as much to the experiences which apparently have a purely internal origin, such as artistic inspiration, moral transformation, and religious enlightenment. That which moves one person profoundly, leaves another cold. The significance of the experiences depends upon individual endowment, upon what has been experienced before, upon the mood we happen to be in when the experience assails us. A word, a work of art, which has hitherto left us indifferent, will of a sudden pierce our very soul as with a sword. Thus any purely physiological theory of such experiences proves quite inadequate. Freud has shown that an isolated experience, be it never so impressive, rarely leads to illness. Only if earlier, especially in childhood, at least one analogous emotion occurred, may illness ensue. With a little child, even a single fright is sufficient. For instance, the father of a six weeks' old baby, wishing to quell the infant's cries, tweaked its nose. Tne little one immediately developed a convulsive twitch which never left the child until later when it was psychoanalysed. 400 INFLUENCE OF SPECIAL EXPERIENCES 401 Further, in answer to those who maintain that the patho- genic factor must invariably have been some shock from without, Freud has shown that it is always the fantasies which lead to illness. Such fantasies may, however, appear without there having been any mental shock produced by a catastrophic experience. A long series of petty worries may do more harm than some single incident which causes the most intense anguish. 2. Corporal Punishment. Current opinion has it that the rod is an indispensable instrument for education. This view is actually held by neurotics who have been brought to grievous harm by corporal punishment; they even maintain that every stroke that misses its mark must be bitterly atoned for. Many otherwise Christianly folk who believe in the doctrine of grace, approve at any rate of whippings that have been " deserved." All they demand is that chastisement shall not be administered in anger or haste. On the other hand, for centuries past, there have been educators who have strongly objected to this method of enforcing discipline and have expressed the fear that more roughness than virtue will thereby be inculcated. No one will deny that a great number, one might almost say the majority, of children can bear moderate punishment without suffering thereafter. But it is equally impossible nowadays to deny that a vast number of children have been grievously injured by corporal punishment. A number of educators who believe that the delicately poised children which cannot endure the rod form so insignificant a minority that they need not be taken into account. Such teachers quickly have recourse to the ever-ready cane when their classes prove insubordinate. I am absolutely opposed to this point of view. The number of those who are harmed through beating, especially upon the buttocks, is undoubtedly very great. Every doctor who is familiar with psychoanalytical methods has confirmed my opinion when I have asked him the question. I myself have constantly had to do with neurotics in whom sadistic feelings were first aroused by corporal punishment; often the sadistic impulse thus awakened has been repressed, and forms the starting point of very malignant aberrations about which 402 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS it would be all too disingenuous to aver that they would have developed without the free use of the rod. Here is an example culled from my collection. The analysand is a cultured man who suffers from obsessions, innumerable bodily pains, the most troublesome of which is a tingling of the ears, and from w'eariness of life. At thirty years of age he had not yet settled down to a profession, for nothing he had tried had proved to his satisfaction. For the last twenty-four years or so he has been troubled with a sadistic obsession in which he contemplates, with multiple variations, a whipping scene. In his fantasy, children (usually girls), and sometimes adults, are beaten on the bare buttocks. Sometimes the drama will take place in a convent; a nun is punished by her superior. The mere idea causes strong sexual excitement. This hysteric has been liable since his fourteenth year to have an ejaculation of semen whenever he has pictured to himself the ruthless whipping of children. The aberration of his love instinct and of his hate was occasioned by the same antecedents which had led to his neurosis. The analysand had attended a boys' school from the age of five to his seventh year. Here the pupils were beaten on the naked rump every day by an obviously sadistic teacher. The children looked on, and my patient did so with peculiar feelings of curiosity and pleasure. One day for the first and the last time he likewise was beaten. He was immediately overcome with a strong feeling of pleasure, which he repressed. (His subsequent development went to prove this fact.) At home, if he did anything amiss, his mother might box his ears, but he never had any other form of corporal punishment administered to him. After his sexuality had been aroused by the corporal punishment at school, he began to masturbate, and indulged the habit to excess, often continuing for a long while during the day. From childhood onwards, he would continuously swing his leg up and down when he sat. Ever since childhood until just before the analysis he could not eat butcher's meat or could only bring himself to do so if it were finely minced.1 As is so often the case, this loathing for meat 1 I encountered the same symptom in a lady of sixty-six. She had suffered from it for three years, since the time when she had detected her husband in an intrigue, and had been enraged by his coarse sensuality. I have also INFLUENCE OF SPECIAL EXPERIENCES 403 is connected with the disgust of sin (supra p. 374) ; whereas since he has come to understand what ails him he no longer is horrified at a well-regulated sexual life. The father was a thoroughly well-disposed man of a cheerful disposition. He allowed his numerous children to do pretty much as they pleased, liking to join in their frolics, but unwilling to bother them with moral admonitions. He had never been able to bring himself to the enforcement of a vigorous educational discipline, even when his children were inclined to run wild and imperil their future. The mother was serious-minded and strict, though not to an extreme. The children recognised that their mother meant well by them, but their affections were somewhat alienated by her frequent fault-finding. A great impression had been made upon his mind, during his childhood in the East, by the practice of mixed family bathing, when there was present, in addition to his mother and his sisters, a pretty servantmaid, whom on these occasions he saw perfectly nude. This experience dated from his fifth year onwards. At school, he was on bad terms with his teachers, and made a poor showing in the classes, of which his talents ought to have constituted him the leader. He often indued the armour of hysterical disorders, which gave him freedom from the schoolmasters and secured indulgence from his mother. When he was ten years old he was seized with an urgent desire to have himself whipped by one of the servantmaids, but he was afraid to ask her. At night he would often play cards until after midnight, his father not having the strength to raise any objection. Naturally, therefore, his position at the Gymnasium underwent no improvement, and when he was fourteen or fifteen years old his progress was entirely arrested. In despair, he attempted suicide, throwing himself into the sea near an ocean-going steamship. Instantly repenting his rashness, he managed to make his escape. His mother lavished kindness on him after this attempt, whilst his father, in invincible optimism, felt assured that it could not have been seriously meant. seen this symptom in a young woman of four-and-twenty, who was indignant because, when her mother had been ill and was not yet fully recovered, her father wished to enforce sexual intercourse upon the latter. 404 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS Regarding his deliverance as miraculous, he now con- sidered himself chosen for great things. Though he was a Jew, in his fantasies he assumed the role of the Saviour. In religious instruction he became the head of the class, so that his teacher was proud of him. But now he took to reading Spinoza and atheistic literature, and even went so far as to found an atheistic paper which greatly impressed those of his own age and those of his own way of thinking. He was the head of a circle which held weekly meetings, and at these the existence of God was successfully disproved. At the age of seventeen he left school and tried his hand at various occupations, but was found idle and untrustworthy, so that no one would employ him for long. While at work, his mind (in spite of himself) was continually occupied with sexual matters, and this undermined his energies. But when any of his associates made a coarse remark, as is the way of young fellows, his attitude was extremely censorious. Mani- festly he had a fanatical zeal for decorum, which bridged over the moral morass into which he had plunged. The sadistic ideas were concentrated more and more upon girls of fifteen or sixteen. Whenever he thought of such a girl he had an irresistible urge to strip and masturbate. Of late years, in his sexual fantasies, he has pictured himself as being whipped. He was cutting in his manner towards those whom he did not like, and thus made enemies for himself. When he married, what he would have liked best would have been that during or instead of the natural act of intercourse his wife should whip him. Since she would not yield to this desire, he managed to per- suade her to pinch and strike herself, so that she even came to find pleasure in these perversions. There was no real affinity of dispositions between them, and at length he broke with her irreparably. In other relationships of life he showed the same rough demeanour. Fundamentally, nevertheless, he was a kind-hearted man, a thoroughgoing idealist, and an enthusiastic social reformer. It is obvious that in this subject the sight and the experience of corporal punishment exercised a momentous influence upon the development of the love sentiment. Even one who passionately contemns sexuality will hardly be inclined to deny that the corporal punishment induced well-marked sexual stimulation-although the gluteal region is not within the INFLUENCE OF SPECIAL EXPERIENCES 405 domain of the genital organs. The mixed bathing, most undesirable, but quite innocently practised in the circum- stances of his upbringing, has its bearing upon the way in which, in the sadistic obsession, the whipped boys were replaced by girls, and the castigating schoolmaster by women. The corporal punishment forced his sexuality into sadistic and masochistic channels, and repression ensured the fixation of these experiences and their obsessive reproduction in day- dreams. The sight of a feminine form in close proximity must have induced a change of roles in the obsession. Later there was a transference of affect from the man who first whipped him at the preparatory school to teachers in general, so that they were all regarded with hatred. We see that there is no justification for the view that teachers must invariably be looked upon as father-substitutes. The whole development of the subject's mental life was greatly influenced by the corporal punishment. Despite his natural gifts, his hatred of teachers made him detest study. His inability to devote himself to learning an occupation was likewise dependent upon his dislike of teachers, for the antagonistic affect was now transferred to his chiefs. After his failure to find a career, he participates in an enthusiastic religious movement, obviously in order to give scope for his fantasy that he is the Saviour. But here he finds himself engaged in moral conflicts which are too much for his strength, and he avails himself of an illness (unconsciously engendered or consciously cultivated) to effect a further change of occupation. The analysis at length gave him a clear understanding of himself and freed him from most of his symptoms. Attaining to a sense of inward stability and ease, he unfortunately dis- continued the sittings before sufficient information had been secured regarding all the details. It is a mere suggestion, therefore, that the tingling of the ears, which always came on in conjunction with or in place of a prick of conscience, was connected with his mother's practice of boxing his ears, and was therefore a self-inflicted punishment. The denial of the existence of God is certainly connected with the strict teacher. Had the boy been a Christian, the well-meaning though weak father would probably have been able to save the lad's faith in God-but the conception of the Jewish God did not square with that of the kindly but weak father. 406 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS My next example is that of a girl of seventeen. A fragment of this analysis has already been recorded on p. 252, when I described how in imagination the girl lived in the company of a beautiful fairy. Among the most characteristic traits of her neurosis was a sadistic fantasy and obsession. Her father, who was extremely hot-tempered, and a sister who was much older than herself used often to whip her, and this was an outrage to her feelings. At length one day, when she was under school age, for some trifling offence her sister whipped her as usual on the bared buttocks, and on this occasion she experienced a strong voluptuous feeling. Another incident that made a great impression on her mind-it was still before her school days-was when a grown-up relative, good- humouredly mocking her prudery, pulled up her chemise. The inspectionist urge now developed. Momentous was another experience, evoked during the analysis as an association to the obsession which will be described presently. A young mother, in sheer delight, kissed her baby on the lower part of the back, and invited the analysand, who was then about eight years old, to do the same. She refused to do so. At the same age, during a game, she and her little sister of four were shut up together in a cupboard. She wanted to lift up the little one's frock, but the attempt was resisted. In a rage, the elder girl pushed the younger against the wall of the cup- board and struck her. When she was ten, she stripped in front of the looking-glass and, bending double, began to beat herself. When she was eleven she whipped a child of five or six on the naked rump, ostensibly because the child had wetted itself, but really under the urge of her own sadistic desires. A year later, her sister whipped her on the bared buttocks, when other people were present, and she experienced com- mingled shame and pleasure. (We may doubt the analysand's statement that she was twelve when this happened. Perhaps the whole thing is a masochistic fantasy.) Many dreams and day-dreams bearing on these experiences were reported. She whips a small child on the behind ; she whips a doll which changes into a girl; conversely, a whipped girl changes into a doll; she runs after a young man (who reminds her of her brother), strips in front of him, and begs him to strike her ; she has herself whipped by her sister. Occasionally she would picture her brother, and herself sud- INFLUENCE OF SPECIAL EXPERIENCES 407 denly biting him on the rump. We see that her imagination calls up, with variations, the kissing scene in which she had refused to participate. But in all these fantasies, the blows never really got home ; it seemed to her as if she could not bend her arm, or as if she had no power to strike. The morbid development went far beyond such sadism and masochism. Distressing anxiety connected with excrement set in. When she had been to the closet, she was haunted by a dread that fragments of faeces might have remained in the bowel or that her fingers might have been soiled. She would have to wash her hands three or four times with the utmost particularity. In the street she would see dogs' excrement, and perhaps her mouth had been slightly open at the moment; then she would be seized with fear lest some of the filth had blown into her mouth. If she saw a man sitting on a stool, she would think of him as defaecating, and would thereupon experience a hallucinatory smell of faeces. We see that the idea of biting the buttocks has aroused in the child the quite common coprophiliac longing to swallow faeces, that the desire has been repressed and that it now forces its way into con- sciousness as an obsession and a phobia. The girl's self-respect was undermined by all these fantasies, whose sexual nature she was aware of. She regarded herself as a hopeless reprobate. The fear of death now took possession of her, and this led her to pray, although she was far from convinced of the existence of God. In fact, she used to append to her invocations the phrase : " If Thou dost exist." From the age of twelve onwards she had an obsession that, like John the Baptist of old, she was standing beside a river and exhorting sinners to repentance. She found it " horrible " that she had to do this, being especially troubled because she had to fulfil her mission in solitude, far from the haunts of men. Such was her painful atonement for her misdeeds. The clinical history shows how distressing are the aberra- tions which may be induced by corporal punishment. Had the girl's father and sister had the least inkling of the formidable consequences of the chastisement they inflicted, we can hardly suppose that they would have been so cruel as to maltreat the child in such a way. Another case in which the disastrous results of corporal 408 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS punishment were evident was that of a lady in the middle forties. She suffered from a distressing obsession and from a number of hysterical pains, the most notable of which was migraine. When quite a little girl she had been whipped by her mother, and during the infliction of what must have been a very moderate chastisement she chanced to catch sight of her own buttocks in the looking-glass. This immediately aroused voluptuous sensations, which were promptly sup- pressed. When she went to school, the sight of another pupil being chastised would arouse voluptuous sensations. She suffered from frequent headaches as long as she was under the care of a male teacher with a taste for the use of the rod. When a schoolmistress took his place, the girl's headaches vanished, and did not recur until she married. When the fohn was blowing, she always had severe headache. During the analysis she recalled that, in childhood, swinging had aroused sexual excitement. After she had been frightened by an exhibitionist this game came to an and. From the time of her marriage she had always had migraine when there was a high wind. Thus sexual repression had taken its revenge by a painful hysterical symptom which made reflection quite impossible. When she was forty there was still evidence of the persistent effects of the whipping in early childhood. The obsession that the man she loved was whipping children would monopolise her thoughts at the climax of the love ecstasy, and since she was a woman with exalted moral ideals the experience would leave an impression of shame and loathing in her mind. I cannot go into further details regarding this case. An analogous instance is one that I have described else- where. A boy of sixteen, a candidate for confirmation, con- fided to me that for the last year he had suffered from melancholy. His dreams disclosed that he wished for his parents' death. Not until the analysis had been going on for several weeks did he tell me that he masturbated every day, and that the act was invariably preceded by the fantasy that a boy or (less often) his sister was being whipped on the rump. The habit had been acquired two years earlier. For about the same period he had suffered from morbid blushing and from abdominal pain. Masturbation had been initiated by INFLUENCE OF SPECIAL EXPERIENCES 409 a climbing exercise in the gymnastic lesson. A few weeks later, when, during the interval, a boy near him was being spanked, the analysand, whose legs were hidden under the desk, rubbed his thighs together and thus induced an orgasm The obsession dated from this experience. Of course, earlier episodes were called up as associations. The earliest dated from his fourth or fifth year. In the corridor common to the various flats of the house where he lived, some unknown offender had scribbled on the wall in pencil. One of the neighbours accused the analysand's sister of the misdeed. The analysand took the blame upon himself, but assured me that he had not done so for the sake of his sister. In the absence of any other obvious reason, I must assume that he acted on the promptings of a masochistic impulse. He soon had reason to regret his false self-accusation. His sister charged him with the offence, but secured no credence, and was given a whipping, whereat the brother, as he distinctly remembers, experienced voluptuous pleasure, though hitherto he had witnessed chastisements of the sort without any sexual sensations. He also began to be troubled with a sense of self-reproach. Prior to this he had experienced sexual excitement when he was himself struck on the buttocks. In later years the sadistic feelings were only aroused when one of his schoolmates who had done him a wrong was being whipped for it. We see, then, that the sadistic factors only became operative as conscious manifestations of feeling when hatred was con- tributory. But in the case we are now considering it is plain that hatred was the expression of a repressed incestuous love. The same feeling supplies the motive energy of the obsession and of the masturbation. The results of the analysis were gratifying. Not only did the subject recover his pleasure in life and his delight in work, but satisfactory relationships were established between himself and his sister in place of the previous state of hostilities.1 The good effects of the analysis lasted for several years. Then he went abroad, and began to be troubled with grave mental conflicts, which might have been easily overcome had he been lucky enough to find himself under the care of a doctor or teacher who was a competent psychoanalyst. Since no such 1 Die psychanalytische Methode, pp. 478 et seq. 410 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS aid was forthcoming, and since all the conventional means for " calming the nerves " proved fruitless, his distress became intensified, and at length he tried to commit suicide. There- upon he was sent home under restraint, and was then speedily cured by psychoanalysis. Since that time he has been able to weather serious crises in normal fashion, and has for some years enjoyed the best of health. Our examples show that the obsessions were associated with sexual activities, and usually with masturbation. In innumerable cases this is itself a symptom of neurotic com- pulsion, and when aggravated can only be cured by analysis. What has been said concerning blows upon the buttocks applies to chastisement inflicted on other parts of the body as well. Caning on the hand, boxing the ears, hair pulling, slapping the face, and other ingenuities of torture, may all arouse sadistic and masochistic tendencies. In later life the sadism thus originated by chastisement is apt to take the form of cruelty towards children, relatives, subordinates, pupils, prisoners on trial, etc. But quite a number of these sadists are fanatical opponents of corporal punishment. Others, again, in whom a savage lust has been aroused by cruel sufferings, will repress their revengeful fantasies so thoroughly that they become Tolstoians, and utterly repudiate the employment of force. The use of the rod often spoils the child. A wealth of distressing experiences in this field has con- vinced me that anyone who strikes a pupil without having a clear knowledge of his victim's mental condition is infringing the most elementary human rights. But I must not be supposed to imply that such methods, though they certainly carry with them the danger of brutalisation, will necessarily and in all circumstances do permanent harm. 3. Moral Torture. There are moral punishments which are even more dan- gerous and more corroding to the soul than corporal punish- ments. The reader must not, however, suppose that this statement conflicts with what I said above. Such effects are produced when the child's feeling of self-esteem is broken down by a person in authority, or when the child's advances towards INFLUENCE OF SPECIAL EXPERIENCES 411 those whom it yearns to love are met by them with contempt or spite, or a delight at the little one's mishaps. I shall content myself with a single example. My aid was sought by a woman in her middle twenties who suffered from weariness of life, hysterical bodily pains, and a poignant sense of self-depreciation. Her demeanour and her handwriting were so mannish that one was instantly led to infer that a feeling of inferiority existed. This remarkably attractive young woman has a frigid expression of countenance ; her intellectual attainments inspire respect. Here is her story. She is the youngest of a large family. The father died a few years prior to the analysis. He was a clever and dis- tinguished man, but, owing to mental distress he had taken to drink and his temper had become extremely savage. The mother was weak and excessively tender towards her offspring, but she feared the brutality of her husband and did not venture to take her children's part against him. It often appeared, therefore, as if she were siding with the father. The poor woman had to put up with the grossest insults in the presence of her children, and became somewhat melancholic. Her will was broken, her joy in life shattered. The father ceaselessly tormented his family, spoiled his children's fun, made mock of everything they said or did, and kept them in a constant state of fear and bitterness. The meals and the walks which they all took together were especially painful events. The father forbade the most innocent converse, with the rough remark : " Do you imagine we're in a pot-house ? " If the children answered a question, they were usually laughed at for their pains. At length they hardly dared to open their mouths, and felt as though they were in prison. It even happened that they collogued together as to what they could say that would not infuriate the father : but such preparations, too, only led to disappointment. One day when the youngest, on her return from a visit to a farm, wished to tell the family all about it and how lovely it had been, the father remarked that such pleasure would not last long, for the proprietress was an old woman and would soon be dead. In spite of considerable endowments, our analysand did not take a high place at school. She projected the father into the teachers and wished to let fly at them everything she dared not show to the dreaded tyrant at home ; she was there- 412 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS fore obstinate and inordinately impudent. Commenting on her bad school reports, the father observed tauntingly : " It would certainly be unjust to reproach you, for of course you can't help being stupid, can you ? " The young girl thus found herself in a position of terrible forlornness and distress. On occasion the father, who was esteemed by the outside world as a man of fine qualities, could behave quite nicely to his family, though such kindliness was sure to be swiftly followed by even more cruelty. Once when he had taken his youngest child on his knee, she asked him timidly : " Are you always going to be so nice to me now ? " Filled with wrath, the father flung her aside, and the germ of affectionate hope was drowned in a flood of tears. At six years of age the little girl played a part in a most unfortunate scene with another child. Her companion, who was somewhat younger than herself, suggested that they should play at father and mother, and he was sufficiently well informed to tell her that something would happen. He stripped, and the little girl's interest was aroused towards inspectionism. She was filled with curiosity as she watched her governess undressing behind a curtain ; she also spied upon her brother when he was bathing. Outwardly, she played the prude. This beautiful girl was wooed by a stripling when she was fourteen years old. She flirted with him, and made a practice of visiting his room. When, after much toying with her, he proceeded to indecorous actions, she drew back. Meanwhile, in order to cloak her many outgoings, she had enmeshed herself in a complicated network of lies, and these were a load on her conscience. She spent an amazingly long time over her toilet, for she imagined thereby she could escape from the range of her persecutor's interference. One day her father found her concealing an obscene book. Straightway she was sent far away from home and placed in a boarding-house. The fifteen- year-old girl was rejoiced at this event. But being under the impression that she was corrupt, and suffering under the spell of an obsessive idea that she was stupid and must be a bore to all intelligent persons, she did not get into touch with her new surroundings. She was ever enquiring of herself : " What shall I talk about so as not to make a fool of myself ? " The more carefully she thought over some suitable subject, the more constrained was her demeanour. She could never laugh with INFLUENCE OF SPECIAL EXPERIENCES 413 the others, and her depression overwhelmed her. One day while singing a song she burst into tears and was quite at a loss to account for her sorrow. She could no longer remember what song it was which had caused the outburst. After her return, things became worse. At seventeen she left home for good. This was fortunate, for had she remained at home she would ere long have completely broken down. Among the strangers with whom she now associated she won esteem by her charming personality, her intelligence, and her sterling qualities ; on the other hand, some of her new acquain- tances regarded her as a sphinx because of her coldness and reserve. She became engaged to be married in order to be independent of her parents. The fiance was a domineering father-substitute for whom she could not feel a sufficient love ; taking advantage of her betrothed's impudent demand that she should blindly subject herself to his will in all things, she broke her engagement. Subsequently she fell in love with a man twenty years her senior, who was married and a father, and who returned her love. He was an ideal contrast father- substitute, for he was a kindly and gentle man. Both parties were happy in their mutual love ; at the same time they were unhappy, and determined that nothing unchaste should enter into their relationship. At the beginning of the analysis her condition had become unbearable. In especial did she dread any encounter with intelligent people. She was always troubled with the obsessive questions : " Shall I not bore them ? Won't they laugh at me because of my stupidity ? Won't they find my appearance ludicrous ? What shall I do with my hands while I am talking ? " She prepared herself with meticulous care when she had to come into contact with educated people, was quite at a loss if some unexpected topic came up for discussion, and could not even talk with satisfaction about the subject she had prepared beforehand. She had laboured under the feeling of being an eccentric ever since her sixteenth year. It was only when in company with very simple folk that she could feel happy, whereas among the educated she succumbed to a state of mental rigidity which was often reflected in her outer aspect. Even when alone, this condition would assail her, and was accompanied by profound depression. Sometimes she would wake up with the poignant thought: " It (the evil) is there 414 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS again ! " Then she would weep for many hours. But at least when she was alone she had not to hide her imaginary stupidity as she had to when in the society of others. The weariness of life was sometimes very powerful, and frequently led to plans of suicide, especially from her fifteenth year onwards ; this impulse, however, came into conflict with her religious convictions and her belief in another life beyond the grave. She had undergone two operations. Each time she experienced profound sorrow when she awoke from the anaesthetic. She invariably arrived late at meetings in order that she might avoid having to talk to anyone. If conversation was unavoidable, she would try to impress her interlocutor by a free-and-easy manner. Soon, however, her internal collapse was complete, and a feeling of self-pity overwhelmed her. When she made acquaintance with a young man who pleased her, she would subsequently have a protracted fit of weeping. I have not hitherto mentioned a sexual obsessive vision. When she is talking with men, she fancies them (much to her disgust) undressed and with the male attributes of body dis- tinctly marked. The symbolic counterpart to this imaginative inspectionism is the well-known frigidity in the expression of the eyes which is only encountered among women who wish to be left unmolested by their sensual impulses. Her dreams expressed her rejection of married companionship because she believed herself to be a brutal, filthy creature, who could only bring sorrow to the person she loved. She longed for children and yet at the same time did not want to have anything to do with them. In the extremity of her wretchedness she became more and more introverted. Her wish to kill her father was likewise disclosed by her dreams, but these also gave expression to her urgent desire to atone for the terrible wickedness of such a wish by severe neurotic suffering. She was for ever under the menace of her father's words : ''You will have to pay dearly for your undutifulness towards me." We see that the moral torments inflicted by the father had determined the whole development of the love sentiment in the daughter. A thrashing now and again, dangerous as it is, would be better borne by many children (especially by those of a sensitive disposition) than abuse, depreciation, and con- tempt. There is a cruelty in words which can give points to physical maltreatment. Children often take a strange revenge INFLUENCE OF SPECIAL EXPERIENCES 415 in that they come to play precisely that part which the father or the mother has contumeliously assigned to them. The boy who is often termed a reprobate, tries to be worthy of the reputation ; the girl who is deemed a liar or a thief, tends to become such in reality. 4. Frights. Are frights capable of bringing about morbid aberrations of love ? One occasionally is told of a child which has become a stammerer because it has had a shock at seeing some one in a mask representing the devil, or at witnessing some similar tomfoolery. Here also everything depends upon natural pre- disposition and upon previous experiences no less than upon the mood at the moment the occurrence takes place. The most terrible of frights may entail no evil consequences, whereas the most innocent of practical jokes may lead to serious disorders. Dr. Albert Schweitzer, professor and missionary, has told me of a half-grown lad in a negro village for whom bananas were taboo. One day, being informed that he had eaten out of a vessel in which a banana had lain, he fell dead on the spot. A case in which the analysis did not go very deep because the cure of the patient was so rapidly accomplished, was reported on p. 79 et seq. of my book Die ftsychanalytische Methode. A little girl of five had her right arm and leg paralysed since she had once been awakened by roysterers. When she was ten years old an adult for fun threatened to kill her. The child ran terrified from the room, opening the door for herself ; for three days thereafter she lay trembling all over. The new terror had refreshed the memory of the old. An automatic twitching of the arm accompanied by a twisting round of the closed hand appeared as an unconscious imitation of the door opening. I had no opportunity of discovering other pathogenic influences excepting a strong predisposition to hysteria which manifested itself in vomiting and other symptoms. There is no doubt in my mind, however, that other factors contributed. In general, neuroses have a twofold causation ; and this we find in the case under review. Careful investigation shows that in many instances the fright has been the outcome of an unconscious wish. This may be plain to every one except the person chiefly concerned. Ghost stories, threats of the devil, or of child-eating ogres, of 416 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS owls or of Old Father Christmas, etc., have an evil effect when they fall upon a child whose love sentiments are in an unwholesome condition ; other children rise up unscathed and can even make fun of the grisly monsters. Sexual frights are of all frights the most enduring in their effects. We shall have occasion to deal with these later. Psychoanalytical investigation has shown that the child's conscience plays a far more important part than has hitherto been suspected. In many of my examples we have seen children punishing themselves for previous misdemeanours by means of severe morbid symptoms : we have seen young girls suffering from anxiety and from obsessions in order to expiate the sin of wishing to kill the father (cf. pp. 128 et seq. ; pp. 139 et seq.) ; we have seen a boy who had had the sadistic obsession of imaginatively killing a girl school- fellow making atonement by a suicidal fantasy (cf. p. 145) ; we surprised another lad in hallucinatory visions of ghosts because he had committed an offence with a servant lass (cf. p. 148); another, who had illtreated horses and salamanders, paid himself out by having stereotyped dreams of being tracked down (cf. p. 152). The question of pricks of conscience runs like a red thread through this whole book. We do not propose to make a closer examination of the nature of conscience in this place. I would merely like to point out how superficial is the view that the voice of con- science is nothing more than an adaptation to the moral standards of one's environment. Further, that talk about mass instincts, and inherited moral capital is far from being a sufficient explanation, though it certainly contains a modicum of truth. The creative nature of the conscience lies hidden away in the depths, and he only who searches the problem of freedom to the very foundations can enter the innermost precincts of the sanctuary 5. Pangs of Conscience. As an example of a " victim of conscience," I may mention the case of a thirty-five-year-old man who sought my assistance in great distress of mind. For two hours he had wandered about the town, torn by the dilemma : should he throw himself into the lake, or should he come to consult me. The more INFLUENCE OF SPECIAL EXPERIENCES 417 rational proposition carried the day. If the visit to me proved a failure, then the other possibility was open to him ; whereas if he began with the suicide, that was the end. The sick man suffered from an incapacity to work, from obsessive pre- occupation, from sleeplessness, from anxiety ; he feared that God would forsake him and he would then fall a prey to the devil. Sometimes he would be tortured with the idea that he would have to be sent to a lunatic asylum. Again, he would live in dread of an apoplectic seizure and would fear death overtaking him unprepared. When he is looked at he feels uneasy. He himself cannot look another straight in the eye. If a girl happens to be sharing the same compartment of the train with him he cannot endure the anxiety caused by the thought that she is despising him. In consequence of this anxiety he is constrained to make his railway journeys, even in winter time, standing in the corridor. Sometimes when travelling by train it happened that he selected a place next a lady ; then he would overwhelm himself with reproaches and he would feel obliged to squeeze himself into a corner in order that he might not see her. He was constantly obsessed with the desire to kiss his mother. When sexual topics came up in conversation he broke into perspiration. Even as a child he did not consider it decent for a betrothed couple to walk arm in arm. For twenty years he had been a confirmed believer in celibacy because in Romans vii [sic !] marriage is held to be simply a means whereby to avoid unchastity. He had often been tempted to become a monk. He often lost ail sense of reality ; he seemed then to be living in a world of dreams. His inhibitions frequently found expression in activities of no moral importance ; this pain- fully precise man is wretched because he cannot write as well as he would like. He seems to be possessed by a counter- impulse which constrains him to write irregularly ; he has a stiff and cramped feeling in his hands and feet which impedes him in the execution of actions he wishes to undertake. If in the course of a letter he happens to write about himself, his handwriting is niggling, but it immediately assumes adequate proportions when he turns to recounting other items of news. He sits on the very edge of the chair, as if to betoken that he is on the verge of a fall. Despite all he can do, when he walks along a street his feet always lead him into the gutter. 418 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS His whole life consists of a moral struggle carried on with the utmost energy. He is indefatigable in his earnest endeavours to be a good man ; but he only experiences defeat, for the results seem to him utterly inadequate. His friends hold him to be a miracle of devotion to his professional work ; he, however, looks upon himself as the most despicable of mortals. He frequently feels a longing to meet life with open arms, but is hindered from doing so by the conviction that he would then become a victim to his sensuality. He fulfils his avocations simply from a sense of duty, never from a feeling of delight. He is the very embodiment of the categorical imperative and likewise of the most poignant misery that can arise out of this grey philosophy. His diary has become his torment. Like so many other neurotics he writes it up with punctilious care ; in writing he promises himself the most beautiful things, the acquisition of which is far beyond his powers of attainment. When he finds he cannot procure these things he punishes himself by terrible self-reproach and by a feeling of self-depreciation. His earnestness is a means of self-torture and places itself at the behest of his masochistic desires. He thereby completely loses all courage and energy, and life becomes unbearable. An unwholesome piety increases his misery. Although I am reserving the discussion of the religious process for a later date, it is necessary to draw attention to certain points in the case now under consideration. The analysand has the most concentrated form of piety it has even been my lot to meet with. But no ray of sunshine penetrates therein. God is the all-holy, the terrible and the just God, who does not permit his commandments to be disobeyed, and unmercifully visits his wrath upon the breaker of his law. Reverence has been distorted into fear, or rather, into anxiety. Nevertheless the patient yearns passionately towards God. In dreams the representative of God appears to him with his father's dis- tinctive characteristics. Of all his symptoms, the one which causes him the acutest anguish is the feeling that he stands before God as a sinner. Every miscarriage of his activities, every suffering he endures, is conceived of as a merited retri- bution from God. The horrible feeling of iniquity cuts him off from human fellowship, for he says in his heart that such a corrupt creature is not fit to dw'ell among others, and should INFLUENCE OF SPECIAL EXPERIENCES 419 he do so they would soon detect his wickedness. He often goes into an empty church in order to say the Lord's Prayer. He then begins to sweat. He forgoes the pleasure of music in order to concentrate his religious fervour. But the more he does this, the stronger become the sexual dreams in which he cuddles up to a motherly housekeeper. Any other person would hardly consider this childish gesture a sin ; he, however, is disgusted at his dream, and is reduced to despair. When he is listening to a sermon he will be moved to tears. And yet he can laugh at his most sacred feelings. His one com- forter is Christ, who has promised deliverance. He often clings to the Saviour passionately. But his passion does not sweep him forward vigorously. The dark figure of one who presses ever more insistently into the foreground of his life, drags him downward : the devil constitutes the focal point of this man's thought, and yet he is a cultured and intelligent man, and in most of the other things of life is modern in his outlook and enlightened. The figure of Jesus cannot arise resplendent between the figure of a wrathful God and that of the prince of hell. Let us now examine the cause of these aberrations which, long before the analysis, had found an egress in melancholy. The father was a stern and godfearing man who ruled his family with draconian rigour. Without realising the fact himself, he allowed his moral severity to transcend all bounds, so that it became unloving cruelty. Neither his wife nor his children could feel happy in his presence, and yet they venerated his intellectual superiority and his rigorous adhesion to duty. The mother was unable to counterpose a gentler regime to his gloomy influence. The children heard much about " The Gospels," i.e. a joyful message ; but that with which they were confronted and which was demanded of them had not the ring of joy but of threats. The children could, therefore, only give their love to the mother, whereas the father aroused an inveterate hatred which was repressed by the conscientious children, and yet succeeded more and more in penetrating to the conscious mind. Sexual matters were never mentioned ; but the mother saw to it that at night the children's hands should not be under the bed-clothes. The trend towards neuroticism first appeared in the analysand towards his tenth year. The only notable symptom 420 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS was that as a child the boy could not bring himself to kiss anybody. Previously he had been keenly interested in sexual matters, which his companions would discuss with zest. He listened with avidity, then grew ashamed and vowed he would do so no more. He was profoundly impressed when a little girl once wetted the floor of the schoolroom. But the worst experience happened during his tenth year. Some boys were boasting about certain unseemly adventures they had had. Our analysand, who was always held to be a model of decorum, felt ashamed, fearing he might be taken for an innocent Parsifal; he therefore made up a lying tale of having once committed improprieties with a little girl. This imaginary occurrence was greeted with cheers, and was utilised subse- quently as a means of tyrannising over him. The other boys threatened to tell his father, and this aroused the most dreadful fear. Night and day the youngster trembled at the thought that the rigidly moral man would find out, and his whole existence became a torment. He shut himself away from others as much as he dared, but not completely lest he should arouse the anger of his comrades ; their companionship, how- ever, was a torture. This condition of mind lasted for many months. To the infinite relief of the boy, the family then removed to a distant town. Are we not forcibly reminded of Hermann Hesse's " Demian," when we consider the state of anxiety occasioned in this youth by the threats with which his whole life was encompassed ? From his tenth to his fourteenth year the boy loathed touching wool. When his mother laid out his clean woollen clothes on a Sunday, he could not bring himself to put them on until he was forced to do so. The associations called up by this aversion were as follows : " Cuddling up to comrades, and fights, caused strong sensual pleasure in those days. Once, on the occasion of an expedition into the country, I slept in the same bed with one of my schoolfellows. I nestled up to him, and experienced a pleasurable sensation.-If some one with a beard petted me I felt repelled by his touch." It is obvious that at this period of life, which is of decisive im- portance in the matter of sexual differentiation, the boy experienced homosexual desires. He was threatened with a grave danger. Luckily the lad suppressed such desires and transferred them to boys' clothing. (He stressed the fact INFLUENCE OF SPECIAL EXPERIENCES 421 that this clothing was made of woollen material.) Antipathy to the father was expressed by the incapacity to tolerate the caresses of a bearded man. The intense dislike to touching wool disappeared in the course of the lad's sexual development, but was replaced by far graver symptoms. We perceive how little right we have to register as a gain the loss of a single symptom. The fifteen-year-old youth now procured himself some stimulating literature in the form of Wieland's poetry and the Old Testament, in which he ferreted out all the erotic passages. But his religious sentiment rebelled against the profanation of this sanctuary. The religious feeling of self-depreciation assumed huge proportions. In those days he became ac- quainted with a loose-minded girl of his own age who declared herself willing to strip naked before him. Matters did not proceed to such lengths, but his feeling of being a culprit, grew. Anxiety at the idea of touching forbidden parts of the body had restrained him from practising masturbation ; but the mere touching of blankets or of pillows aroused a voluptuous feeling, which, in its turn, became a burden of sin upon his conscience. The father's menacing attitude towards the son, when the latter attained his seventeenth year, was attended with terrible consequences. The father had discovered traces of a noc- turnal emission on the lad's cheets, and came to the all-too- hasty conclusion that it was the result of masturbation. The son declared he was innocent. But the morality fanatic shouted at his son, whose face paled as the father spoke : "You have been masturbating ! You are threatened with the same fate as your uncle who has been for decades in a lunatic asylum because of dementia praecox ! " The hypochondriac stripling never recovered from this blow. He recognised that, in truth, many of his relatives suffered from mental disorders ; he con- sidered that he had a hereditary predisposition which doomed him to perdition, and that he had only too well deserved his fate because of his sexual fantasies. A physical disability (actually a defective bodily sexual development which could have been remedied by a slight operation) occasioned, already at that date, severe distress. This, likewise, led the unfor- tunate man back to the idea of his sinfulness and to the thought of God's punishments. During the drafting of recruits for the army, a doctor, who was a friend of the family, discovered the 422 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS blemish and, without letting the son know, advised the father to have recourse to a surgeon's skill. But the prudish man kept silence and allowed the son (who had not the courage to let himself be examined) to go on suffering for more than ten years longer. Meanwhile, together with the inhibition of the natural impulses, the spiritual distress grew apace. Ascetic exercises of the F. W. Foerster type, were practised to excess ; as is always the case, they served only to increase the misery, for, notwithstanding the best will in the world and all the rehear- sals, they did not ensure success in the decisive issue. Added to all this, his anguish was enhanced by reading a pamphlet by Pastor N. Hauri, entitled Eine Konfirmandenstunde uber den siebenten Gebot, published at St. Gall. This writing is unfor- tunately all-too-widely circulated, and has caused an uncon- scionable deal of harm. It deals with sexual indiscretions in a manner which, from the educational point of view, is thoroughly wrongheaded, for it threatens the unhappy back- slider, who does not know how to help himself, with the most appalling punishments. Thus was produced the multiplicity of morbid symptoms which found their culmination in a consciousness of depravity. We need not further raise the veil on the processes which engendered the individual ravages. All I wished to show was how a misguided method of developing the conscience had brought a noble-minded and gifted man to ruin. Numberless are the experiences and cycles of experience which may prejudice normal development. We might say much concerning the pitiable destiny of the loving child which has to live with parents whose incompatibility of temper constantly leads them to quarrels ; concerning parental favouritism, the consequence of wrongly allotted love, or of psychological incompetence which fails to recognise that the ostensibly impartial treatment of a number of children differ- ing in their aptitudes is, in truth, gross partiality ; we might write of misery at school, of unfavourable home conditions, bad food, lack of elbow-room, and so forth. But we must not be too ambitious, and I have perforce to content myself with the better-known groups of determinants which play an im- portant role in the development of love. INFLUENCE OF SPECIAL EXPERIENCES 423 6. Sexual Influences. (a) General Considerations. Many are those who criticise psychoanalysis because in- vestigations along these lines so often lead to the sexual life as the mainspring of numerous phenomena ; such persons ask themselves anxiously whether a certain preference for this particular aspect of the question has not led to exaggeration of its importance. One who has only studied the subject superficially and who has not himself had practical experience in this field of investigation, will always be inclined to accept the foregoing criticism and to hope that the part played by the sexual is not quite so considerable as psychoanalysts would have us believe. But no amount of wishing can decide such an issue ; facts alone count. All progress in our knowledge depends upon whether we are able to lay aside preconceived notions, no matter how dear such notions may be to us. In order that my meaning may be clear, or that at least I may not be too grossly misunderstood, I propose to disarm my critics by putting forward the following considerations : 1. Opponents of psychoanalysis should remember that Freud, and those followers who more or less agree with him, fully realise that the gravest and most unpleasant accusations levelled against them would be silenced if they would give up their contentions regarding the sexual life and would treat adult human beings in the same way as children are treated during the anthropology lesson, that is to say by hiding the sexual organs with a fig-leaf. But no one can now in honour deny that sexuality and love actually play a tremendously important part in the upbuilding of a personality. Dare we allow prejudice to take precedence of truth, and keep silent when we know how much suffering is occasioned by ignorance ? 2. No other impulse is subject to such powerful repression as the sexual impulse, and no other has such a mighty influence upon the mental life. Is it necessary to remind the reader of the physical and psychical alterations which take place in the animal world during the rutting season ? Or must we simply take on credit the testimony of the poets, painters, and crimin- ologists to the fact that for human beings, too, sexuality is of the profoundest significance ? 3. The more we accustom ourselves to the study of indi- 424 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS vidual urges in their relationship to the remainder of the mental life, the more we come to realise how closely the most elemen- tary needs are interwoven with the higher functions. That the social behaviour of a eunuch differs considerably from that of a normal man will no more be denied than the fact that our sublimest feelings contain a number of sensory ingredients. Many psychologists, and among them an idealist of the calibre of William James, go so far as to refer every feeling to sensa- tions in the vascular and muscular systems. To my way of thinking this is an extreme view ; still, it will show the in- veterate opponents of sensuality that one must not speak slightingly of the significance of the elementary impulses. I have known too many people who have been so successfully inoculated with a disgust for the sexual life, that repression has set in ; such people have been changed into living corpses. (See above pp. 246 and 277.) The stress we lay on the sexual life is not to be wondered at when we consider that every time we are confronted with a neurosis or an aberration of character, anomalies of the sexual life and of love are brought to light. On the other hand, we must not take it for granted that when- ever we meet with abnormal sexual manifestations these are to be looked upon as the cause of the aberration. I know of many instances in which the disorders of the love life have been due to causes of a different category. 4. Freud makes use of the term " sexuality " in a totally different meaning from that usually attached to the word. It signifies for him the love life in the widest sense of the term. That sexuality in this sense (cf. p. 337), that is to say the activities of the sexual organs and all the spiritual impulses connected therewith, is of incalculable importance for the general development of the individual has already been shown in many of the cases previously adduced. But I propose in the following examples to make this even plainer. A girl of fifteen and a half years old was brought to me because she was suffering from asthma and was in certain respects rather difficult to manage. The lass was strong and in glorious health ; she seemed in fact to be the very embodi- ment of health. Her physical development was in advance of her age. As far back as she could remember, she had always (6) Careless Choice of Sleeping Quarters. INFLUENCE OF SPECIAL EXPERIENCES 425 suffered from anxiety. The asthmatical symptoms had made their appearance four years prior to the analysis. As a child she had been subject to insomnia. The anxiety made itself felt in the dark, and especially every night in the bed- room. A noteworthy symptom was that the girl would bury her face in her hands on these occasions. It was about her eleventh year that she fell a victim to asthma after an attack of laryngitis which caused her to suffer from shortness of breath. She was troubled with wheezing and a dry cough. It was noteworthy that the attacks of asthma only came on when she was at home, or when she was staying with a married uncle, or when she was with her mother in a hotel ; if she was visiting other relatives, or was staying with strangers, she was quite free from asthma. The difficulty in breathing would begin directly she went to bed, but usually grew far worse in the middle of the night. Her mother would then have to leave her own bedroom and to sit for hours at the daughter's bedside, sometimes staying there till morning. Of late the girl had had antispasmodic inhalations as a regular thing, and these had given transient relief. But the difficulty in breath- ing would also come on when she was going upstairs, or if she laughed immoderately. At the age of thirteen there had been a change for the worse. She was sitting alone in a rather badly lighted room, and suddenly fancied that some one had seized her by the arm. As white as a sheet, she ran to join the others, only to realise after a time that there had been no one else in the room. Similar experiences occurred on two other occasions. When she went into her bedroom she heard a noise, and screamed in a terrible fright. She said she could not possibly sleep alone, for there might be somebody under the bed. Her parents were extremely gentle and tactful, but her attitude towards them was anything but one of veneration and gratitude. On the contrary, she was often impudent, especially towards her mother, although the latter was con- tinually making the greatest sacrifices for the daughter. She had no girl friends, for she felt herself to be one apart. Never- theless, she behaved quite nicely to her schoolfellows. Towards her younger brothers and sisters, however, she was extremely disagreeable-domineering, contradictory, and quarrelsome. Without any apparent reason she would say 426 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS nasty things to them, and would fly into a passion if they expressed opinions or wishes of their own. As soon as she was able to read, she devoured stories of detectives and Red Indians, stories packed with murders and other hideous crimes. Her dreams and day-dreams were full of such ideas ; and when she was talking about dreams in which no blood-curdling tendencies were obvious, she would insensibly slip into the discussion of criminal incidents. Dur- ing her sleep she once began to talk out loud of war adventures. When she had an attack of influenza, she fancied she saw some negroes or negresses coming to drag her mother, then watching by the bedside, away. Contrasted with this was her exaggerated regret for a little dog which had been run over a year before. When anything was said which reminded her of this animal, though in general she was so independent and rough in her manners, her eyes would fill with tears, and for a long time she could not be com- forted. As to noteworthy muscular movements, the so-called symptomatic actions, the following may be mentioned. She was continually protruding her tongue between her lips. She would often carry her fingers to her mouth, and would then not infrequently bite her nails. She had an automatic twitch of the head, and made a practice of wrinkling up her nose. For the last year she had been at a mountain health-resort famed for the treatment of lung troubles. There, as usual, when away from home and from parent-like relatives in the plain, she had been quite free from asthma. But when she returned home in the holidays, the trouble recurred, tier mental state had indeed grown worse. She emphatically declared that she did not wish to live beyond the age of twenty, and that nothing would ever induce her to marry. The deter- mination not to marry had been formed six months earlier, when one of her schoolfellows had enlightened her regarding sexual matters. Her reaction to this marriage was one of loathing to the sexual life. But in this connexion she had a very strange conviction. Although she was confident that she had never heard or read anything about such matters, she felt sure that she had long ere this been informed concerning the act of procreation. But hitherto she had never been able to say a word about the matter. INFLUENCE OF SPECIAL EXPERIENCES 427 Naturally I had recourse to psychoanalysis. Since the asthma troubled her chiefly when she was at home or was staying with her married uncle, since in her attacks of anxiety in the bedroom when a little child she had been used to cover her face with her hands, and since the attacks of asthma were prone to come on directly she went to her bedroom at night, there were good reasons for suspecting that she had seen the sexual act. From the study of Freud's works and from a number of observations of my own I knew that many cases of asthma are originated in this way. The child thinks that the mother is being horribly maltreated ; it imagines that a dread- ful and mysterious crime has been committed, and the memory of the incident is usually repressed. It can be definitely proved that in children who are not yet two years old such an experience may arouse terror and may leave a formidable impression on the mind-an impression which is all the more disastrous because the scene and its repetition are usually repressed from consciousness. It is difficult to elicit these hidden memories, but once they have been called up the smallest details can usually be ascertained.1 I therefore asked the parents, up to what age the little girl had continued to sleep in their room. The mother said that it had only been during the first year, but according to the father it had been for a year and a half. Once, at any rate, when the girl was older, an illness had made it necessary for her to return to the parents' bedroom. We may be con- fident, therefore, that the anxiety, which was long regarded as due to a stagnation of sexuality and love, should rather be looked upon as a mere recurrence of the terror experienced when listening to and watching the parents-with her hands before her eyes. Many other symptoms, now to be considered, showred that this was the true cause of the neurosis. We understand why the asthma came on when she went to her bedroom at night, why the attacks troubled her only when she was sleeping at home or at the house of parent-substitutes, and why she had the trick of hiding her face in her hands when in her bedroom. The insomnia was likewise explained. She was kept awrake by a dreadful expectation. 1 Cf. Freud, Aus der Geschichte einer infantilen Neurose, Sammlung kleiner Schriften zur Neurosenlehre, fourth series, pp. 578 et scq. 428 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS The transition from simple anxiety to asthma with anxiety was determined by the laryngitis. Freud has shown that anxiety will readily become associated with one happening or another, and that thenceforward the association will be dis- tressingly persistent. A mouse, a thunderclap, or an accident, forms, as it were, the stage on which the anxiety will con- tinue to play its part. But there was an additional reason why the laryngitis should have had a determining influence. It furnished the opportunity for a more dramatic revival of the original scene. Whether we like it or not, it is a fact that the asthmatic is often imitating the panting father in the act of sexual intercourse. In the unconscious the daughter is envious, and her illness can be used as a means for unconsciously controlling her mother's actions. That is why the unfortunate mother is summoned from bed to sit for hours by the girl's side. The mother is called away from the father ; husband and wife are separated. Of course, from an educational point of view the mother made a mistake in yielding to the girl's extortionate wishes. But how natural that she should do so when the child was suffering. In the case of hysterical asthmatics (and asthma is more often hysterical than not), the use of inhalations is disastrous. I will not pretend to say how far such remedies may be indis- pensable when the dyspnoea is occasioned by organic changes in the lungs, the heart, or the kidneys. That is a matter for the doctors. But again and again I have noticed that hysteri- cal patients, in whom the originating cause of asthma is always in the mental sphere, are diverted by medicinal remedies from the consideration of the true determinants of the trouble and from its true cure. Of course it is easier to light a medicated candle or to take some other sort of inhalation than it is to delve into the abysses of the mind. But with few exceptions, we have to do in the case of asthmatics with persons whose chief trouble is not the asthma, but something very different, which is apt to undermine the character and to deprive the sufferer of all possibility of happiness. The case we are now considering was typical in these respects. The first great anxiety hallucination occurred in a room where obscurity and loneliness predisposed to anxiety. When asked for associations to the thought of the person who was INFLUENCE OF SPECIAL EXPERIENCES 429 supposed to have seized her arm, she at once spoke of her father. In the unconscious, therefore, there is a desire to be attacked by the father. We are already on the track of the Oedipus complex. The analysand was a rather impatient subject, and more precise details could not be secured. Nor was I able to ascertain the specific determinants of the two other notable anxiety experiences. When I asked for associa- tions to these, the subject's reactions were only pantomimic, taking the form of head-twitching and nail-biting. All that I could elicit was a reference to a tutor who had given her private lessons ; she did not like him, and he had behaved " stupidly." In this case, too, we are concerned with a father-substitute, who has aroused her erotic feelings in spite of her dislike for him. We come back to a similar causal relationship. She always looks at her parents in the light cast on them by the original scene. She is angry with them for the way in which they behaved on that occasion, and her anger influences her conduct. Towards her brothers and sisters she wishes to play the part of the vigorous father, for her inclination is towards the superior role of the male. She is quarrelsome because the original experience has given a brutal turn to her impulses. Her taste for detective stories depends upon a wish to unravel the mystery of her parents' crime. Her fondness for horrible tales of Red Indians is the outcome of the elemental attraction which the supposed cruelty of her father still exer- cises upon her mind. The fantasy related in her sleep embodies a symbolical act of copulation. The figures in the hallucina- tion she had during the attack of influenza are, as Haberlin phrases it, " sexual spooks."1 The excessive regret for the little dog can be explained as follows. The animal had been her most intimate friend, for she had not been able to enter into relationships of close affec- tion with any human being. It did not belong to her parents, but to some other relatives who lent it to her. The dog had been greatly attached to her, and when she was ill it used to whine outside her door. When she was with her playmates she always felt that they did not really belong to her, but she loved the dog more than anything else in the world. All this was recounted with tears. When I asked 1 Haberlin, Sexualgespenster, " Sexualprobleme," vol. viii, 1911. 430 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS whether she did not care for her father more than for the dog, she said she did not know. She had this excessive affection for the dog because of the stagnation in her feelings towards human beings. In the unconscious she had a dislike of her parents owing to the original scene ; her unconscious wish to play the man, made her domineering towards her brothers and sisters and her girl acquaintances, and for this reason they did not like her. But the dog had no reserves in its affection, and she could do whatever she pleased with it. The movements with the tongue, and the nail-biting, represented the fulfilment of a sexual wish which had been aroused by the experience in her parents' bedroom. These actions were the outcome of a mainly unconscious compulsion. The twitching of the head was likewise the unconscious expres- sion of strong aversion. The wrinkling of the nose, a fixed habit of the father's, was due to an imitation of him and his virility.1 The cramping of the love sentiment explains why the girl did not wish to live beyond the age of twenty, and why she was averse to the thought of marriage. When I asked her the reason for her aversion, she said : " Because when one is married one does what will bring children." We can now understand why it was that when she was sexually enlightened by a companion she had conflicting thoughts about the matter, being aware that she had learned something entirely new to her, and yet being unable to free her mind from the conviction-false as far as the conscious was concerned-that she had known all about it for a long time. Both ideas were true. The infor- mation was new to the conscious, but the facts had long been known to the unconscious. After the sixth sitting, I agreed to her paying a visit to her home. It proved, however, that there was as yet no definite amelioration. For the first two nights, indeed, she was free from asthma. But on the third night the illness returned, after her sister had made an allusion to a love affair. Thereupon, all that we had discussed together was simply repressed. After the tenth sitting, she returned home for good. For four weeks she remained free from attacks, except that once in the morning she had slight dyspnoea which soon passed off. At length, * The subject has fairly frequent attacks of hysterical sneezing, which are also sexually symbolical. INFLUENCE OF SPECIAL EXPERIENCES 431 however, came a bad attack. The cause was the sight of a picture postcard, depicting a pair of lovers, and the remark of a playmate : " That's you I " Again the girl forgot what she had learned. A further sitting brought renewed improvement. The asthma remitted, but did not completely disappear, and there was a relapse three weeks later. And whereas, during the remission, the subject's behaviour towards her family, and especially towards her brothers and sisters, had greatly improved, it now became extremely disagreeable once more. The analysis showed that there wras an attempt to activate in the moral sphere, instead of through hysterical symptoms, the vestiges of the " Indian " or " criminal " com- plex. Here, also, psychoanalysis had to come to her aid. I may give some additional details concerning a case re- ferred to on pp. 220 et seq. A man of thirty-two remem- bers plainly that before he first went to school he had often watched his parents in the act of sexual intercourse, but had adroitly concealed his knowledge of the matter. Since his father treated his mother badly as a rule, he thought that in the act of intercourse the mother was being terribly mishandled but he did not dare to voice his alarm. The first observation of the kind was a dreadful shock to him ; he fancied he was witnessing an abominable crime, and his secret thoughts were almost intolerable. Thenceforward he was extremely un- happy, furious with his father and pitiful towards his mother. The experience had a permanently bad effect upon him. The way had certainly been prepared by the fact that the father was given to drink. When he grew up, the young man became engaged. Thereupon he was seized with a strange dread that he might maltreat his beloved. This dread disclosed the re- pressed wish to treat her as his father used to treat his mother. The engagement was broken off. There can be no doubt that it is very dangerous for chil- dren to be kept long in their parents' bedroom. I used to think that it would be enough if a child were removed to another room at the close of the first year, but I am now inclined to believe that six months is the limit of safety. In the case of severe neurosis we often find that apparently trifling incidents, expunged from the conscious memory quite early in childhood, 432 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS and repressed into the unconscious, have had a potent in- fluence in determining the nature of the symptoms. (c) The Threat of Castration. [See note to p. 445.] It is extremely important to avoid dealing with sexual lapses roughly, and without due regard for psychological con- siderations. An error in this respect is apt to do great harm. What we are contending with will now, with the aid of the unconscious, assume an aggravated form. I knew a man who was impotent in married life, and whose interest in the pro- cess of reproduction was purely perfunctory. In secret he cherished the strange desire to carry his wife on his back. All his sexual impulses found expression in this eccentricity. The analysis disclosed that when he was seven years old he had carried a little girl pick-a-back. The servantmaid had been indignant at this innocent action, and shouted at the young- ster as if he had been committing a crime. The incident had sufficed to bring about a fixation of his sexuality upon this scene, the memory of which had been repressed into the unconscious. In another instance, a young woman who could not marry because the thought of being seen naked by her husband was horrible to her, was suffering from the effect of a foolish action on the part of her governess. When she had been about four years old she had had a fall while skating, and two little boys had witnessed the accident. The governess punished the girl on the ground that she had done something dreadful by show- ing her underclothing to the boys. Thenceforward, in her dreams, the girl, who was naturally inclined to be prudish, would have visions of herself as a naked rope-dancer, being admired by the whole town. Analysis shows that the most dangerous and one of the commonest among such educational errors is the threat of amputating the penis. The almost invariable reason for this threat is to prevent a little boy from playing with his penis. Sometimes the menace has the desired effect, but it often fails. In either case, a repression which is apt to have the most disastrous consequences is an exceedingly common sequel. A few extracts from the analysis of a homosexual will be of interest. This man was an only child, who was brought up INFLUENCE OF SPECIAL EXPERIENCES 433 by a couple of kindly but too narrow-minded aunts. When the lad was between four and five years old he was shown an illustrated Bible. The story of creation was looked at, and then the page was turned to Adam and Eve. But the aunt who was showing him the pictures now interposed a hand saying in a troubled voice : " Stop a moment, you must not look at this one ! " His lascivious curiosity having been awakened, he got hold of the book later in the day, was caught in the act, and was duly punished. A few days afterwards the boy was out walking with his aunt and, perceiving a little lad of his own age passing water in the street, asked innocently: " I say, auntie, why has that boy got such a long little spout ? " The aunt was horrified ; she scolded the child and threatened him, thus accentuating his remark which in itself was innocent enough. At home he stripped before the servantmaid, pro- bably in order to find out whether there was anything wrong with him. The maid, however, seized a kitchen knife and declared to the terror-stricken child that now she really would cut off his little organ. The boy believed she would carry out her threat and fled in dismay. Soon after, he had a dream which haunted him for decades with uncanny vividness whenever he passed by the house in which that scene occurred. Two huge snakes, larger than a man, came through the house door ; one was white and the other red ; they reared up high into the air. A feeling of anxiety was experienced. At the same period the child acquired a very unpleasant habit that clung to him with the force of an obsessional neurosis : he collected snails from all over the garden and then killed them. Then he would return again and again to their corpses in order to feast eyes and nose. He likewise suddenly began to take a keen interest in the dead as they lay in their graves, and he gathered all the information he could from the cemetery keepers. Whenever possible he would slip into a slaughter- house in order to see the animals disembowelled. The dream and the compulsion all go back to the threat of castration. The rearing snakes are a wish-substitute for the amputated organ. The white and the red colouring are probably suggested by anatomical study of his own body. The snails, too, represent the penis. The boy himself con- summates the amputation. Filled with curiosity he wishes to know what will be the consequences of the amputation. 434 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS Hence his interest in dead animals and buried people. They afford a pleasant stimulus to his sense of smell. Later on the lad came to enjoy unpleasant odours, would run after per- spiring soldiers, and would feel refreshed by their emanations. We need go no further in our investigation of the effects the threat of amputation had upon the patient's subsequent life, nor need we discuss the connexion of this with his homosex- uality. Suffice it to say that his whole life history had gone awry in consequence of these educational mistakes. Many victims of the threat of castration hold themselves to be incompetent and weakly beings, incapable of accom- plishing any deed worth the name ; or, again, as a protest against the threatened emasculation, they will assume the airs of a superior person and will tyrannise over their acquain- tances ; or they grow suspicious and believe themselves to be every one's target ; or they will try to disparage others by accosting them with disdain ; or they wish to revenge them- selves by emasculating a father-substitute, or a mother- substitute, as, for instance, by holding up a teacher to the ridicule of the class and thereby proving the teacher to be a person of no worth ; and so on. Whole books might be devoted to the manifold results of the threat of castration. Among girls, one often meets with a strong inferiority complex caused by the observation that they do not possess an organ like a boy. The child will comfort herself with the thought that the organ is there all right but is hidden because it is so small. Frequently, however, the idea takes possession of a little girl that the organ has some time or the other been cut off. Abraham has devoted an essay to the study of the " castration complex " among women.1 (d) Sexual Seductions and Assaults. Frequently in the course of analysis I have found that sexual shocks rnay be traced back to the first year of life. A boy suffered from anxiety in connection with the legs of pigeons and with children whose legs were weakly ; in his dreams he would often see himself chased by a dwarf. At seventeen some one made a mocking observation concerning his nose, and henceforward he was constrained, when walking 1 Abraham, Aeusserungsformen des weiblichen Kastrationskomplexes, *' Internationale Zeitschrift fur Psychoanalyse," vi, 1920, pp. 391 et seq. INFLUENCE OF SPECIAL EXPERIENCES 435 in the street, to cover the organ with his hand. His symptoms, and the associations these evoked, led to the conclusion that a phimosis operation had been performed. The father was amazed when I communicated my discovery to him, and I was no less amazed to learn that the operation had been per- formed when the baby was no more than ten months old.1 In another case, where we had to do with severe hysteria, I discovered, after a very tedious investigation, that once when the father was drunk he had sexually assaulted his little daughter. All the circumstances pointed unmistakably to the fact that the offence had been committed on the occasion of a christening when the unhappy child was just a year old. Mothers and nurses are wrong in supposing that a little child is sexless, and that they can indiscriminately play with the child during its toilet. Even ordinary washing and drying may under certain conditions, cause unwholesome excitement in a child ; how much more, then, will deliberate excitation ! If the sexual excitement be induced by the actions of parents or of brothers and sisters it is far more dangerous than if it be provoked by strangers, for in the former case incestuous desires may occur giving rise to repression which in its turn, as we have seen, is responsible for neuroses of all sorts. We must not suppose that every sexual assault will lead to aberration in the development of love. A single experience, as I have already stated, does not necessarily entail a neurosis. But should the first experience make a deep impression, a subsequent experience, in itself perhaps a trifle, may awaken a profound neurosis ; inasmuch as the fateful earlier experience is recalled to life and becomes pathogenic. Among children's games we may mention the father-and- mother game and still more the doctor game as provocative of sexual excitement (vide supra pp. 215 and 231). The educator must steer wide of two shoals if he wishes to make a sexual danger innocuous : on the one hand he must avoid moral laxity whereby what has taken place is treated as a matter of indifference ; and, on the other hand, he must be careful not to exhibit undue severity which will lead the young person under his charge to repress the incident. As we know, in such a case the evil gets a grip of the whole mental life and disturbs the process of development. 1 Cf. Die psychanalytische Methode, pp. 107 et seq. 436 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS (<?) Inspectionism and Exhibitionism. Experiences which are purely visual may arouse impres- sions just as powerful as those aroused by sexual assaults attended with bodily damage or threats thereof. Many educationists are unaware of this, and that the after-effects in such cases may be no less disastrous. The danger already begins in the home. We have frequently had occasion to note (for instance, vide supra pp. 179 et seq.) how bad it may be for a boy to see his mother partially or completely nude. The sight of a brother's or sister's nakedness, though usually harmless, may at times have undesirable effects. This is especially liable to happen when great freedom in such matters prevails for several years. In the case of three children which were allowed to play quite naked in private grounds year after year, when no other children were about, I saw marked fixations on one another arise. They all became neurotic, and two of them displayed the hysterical symptoms which were described on pp. 195 et seq. (the throwing up of the table furniture in the boy, and hiccup in the girl). In another case, a single inspection of his sister's nudity had a very bad effect upon a boy (pp. 183 et seq.). In boys, the view of the father's nakedness may also have bad results. I know of homosexuals whose perversion was the imitation or elaboration of a scene in which the father had been seen naked. The same considerations apply to girls. The reaction may be either positive or negative or both combined. The child may be seized with horror or disgust, and will henceforward have a repulsion from everything sexual ; or, conversely, a strong attraction towards the sexual may arise. But the usual consequences are repressions. The experience is forced out of the memory ; or gaps in perception speedily ensue, so that, for instance, a young woman of twenty-five, though she had often visited art galleries, had no idea concerning the out- ward characters of masculinity. Manifold neurotic symptoms may be thus induced, through the desires whose direct func- tioning is inhibited securing themselves an outlet automati- cally by symbolical paths. To discuss this process would lead us beyond the scope of the present work. If the the sexual impulse becomes restricted to INFLUENCE OF SPECIAL EXPERIENCES 437 the sense of vision, without passing over into action, there arises that craving for knowledge in which cognition is an end in itself, for the person thus affected does not desire to go beyond cognition, or has no power to do so. Such individuals can solve difficult problems, but they cannot turn their know- ledge to practical account because their interest evaporates, or because they lack the requisite energy (supra p. 296). Out of the urge to look there often arises an urge to display which may manifest itself openly or may be repressed. In the former instance we have exhibitionist longings, which may be crudely manifested or may be sublimated in one way or another. Many actors, orators, and politicians betray in their itch for publicity the after-effects of youthful inspectionism. Furthermore, many persons who suffer from exaggerated shy- ness are really dominated by a repressed wish to show them- selves. (/) Masturbation. It is universally agreed that masturbation is far com- moner than was formerly believed. Among those of my male patients with whom I had occasion to discuss their sexual past, most of them had had experience of masturbation. Neurolo- gists whom I have questioned on this subject tell me the same thing, and they are almost unanimous in the belief that it is much the same with healthy persons. Quite a small percent- age of men will be found to have remained entirely free from masturbation. As regards this distressing fact, we cannot but be reminded of tuberculosis, for we know how exceptional it is for anyone to remain perfectly free from tubercular in- fection. But we must draw careful distinctions as regards deviations from the normal sexual life in the direction of masturbation. It would be ridiculous to contemn as " a masturbator " a man who has practised masturbation once or a few timps. Speaking generally, our moral judgments must make allowance for facts. The aim of the sexual impulse is to serve for the reproduc- tion of the human race. It would, however, be superficial to restrict ourselves to this naturalistic point of view. Humanity is also concerned with moral goods, and the province of ethics is to inform us as to the nature of these. It is obvious that the sexual impulse cooperates in the securing of such supreme 438 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS goods. Who will venture to deny that the sexual life has been of enormous importance in the history of poesy, painting, morals, and religion ? We should make a grave mistake were we to judge mas- turbation only in the light of its effects upon health and reproduction. Recent researches tend to show that masturba- tion, unless practised to great excess (once a day or oftener), has no notable effect on the bodily health. Some persons, indeed, will masturbate day after day for years without any obvious ill-consequences as far as the physical health is con- cerned. The psychical results are far more important. The natural instinct often (though by no means invariably) enters its protest against any stimulation of the sexual organs except in the normal act of reproduction. There is good reason for this, for were it otherwise the natural function of the repro- ductive organs might be ignored, and procreation might come to an end. Moreover, the masturbator would pass more and more completely under the spell of his passion, and would lose disposition and energy for higher activities. The sexual impulse leads one human being towards another, primarily towards members of the opposite sex, but unquestionably towards members of the species in general. Without implying or thinking that improprieties occur, we have to recognise that in friendship there are sensual undertones, though these are usually unnoticed. Masturbation interferes with the direction of the sexual energies into higher channels, with the utilisation of these energies for the development of individuality, for the ad- vantage of society, and for the cultivation of the highest functions of the mind. I have frequently had occasion to notice how boys and girls will shut themselves away from external influences, and will become immersed in themselves, as soon as they pass under the spell of masturbation. Often they are ashamed before others, believing that their mis- conduct can be detected. In many cases their interest in higher things withers. Quite a number are not unhappy because they masturbate, but the conditions requisite for sublimation are lacking. They become selfish and frivolous- mere pleasure-seekers. The ideals they used to venerate are no longer attractive, and become objects of mockery. The danger of moral decay is imminent. INFLUENCE OF SPECIAL EXPERIENCES 439 In most cases, however, the conscience rebels against such an issue. Self-contempt and dread of grave consequences arise. Many boys believe that they have weakened their reproductive powers, have squandered the germinal matter upon which these powers depend ; they may fancy that their spinal cord is liquefying and flowing away ; and so on. Books, tracts, and quack advertisements, filled with false or injudi- cious statements, may make matters worse ; well-meaning but ignorant comrades or teachers often reinforce the factors of anxiety ; the integrity of the personality is menaced. When such conflicts ensue, manifold neuroses may result. The most frequent of all such troubles is anxiety, which, as we have seen, does not usually set in until the evil practice is repressed. This anxiety may take very various forms. One boy will be afraid that he has developed a female breast ; another will believe that an ulcer on the leg is a punishment for his sexual misconduct, and he will not dare to consult a doctor, for he fancies that the latter will know him to be a masturbator ; a third will imagine that his vice has become branded on his face, so that henceforward he must hide from the eyes of men ; a fourth will think that he has ruined his memory and that he will have to be shut up in an asylum ; a fifth believes that he will suffer all his life from some sexual disease. A similar sense of wrongdoing and similar morbid results may be met with in persons who have never masturbated in the physical sense of the term, but have luxuriated in sexual fantasies. These cases are, to say the least of it, no less serious than those of physical masturbation. We should have to run through the whole gamut of neurotic disorders were we to attempt the description of the troubles that may ensue when masturbation is suddenly broken off after having been practised for some time. Obsessions are common in such circumstances, and these often take a re- ligious form. The masturbator may cling to a gloomy religion which promises him help in the fight with the devil-con- ceived as an actual being. He may have an ardent faith in the letter of the Bible. Sometimes a happy sublimation may occur, in the form of a free and healthy development towards religion and morality. Where there is a fanatical element as, for instance, in one who practises abstinence with the aid of improper means, or in one who becomes an over-zealous 440 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS supporter of certain political, artistic, or religious trends, the sublimation has been defective, and vestiges of repression must still be at work. Of course I do not mean to imply that all instances of fanaticism, morbid pietism, and the like, are referable to repressed masturbation. We see that masturbation requires careful handling. I have already pointed out that in many cases it must be regarded as a direct symptom of obsessional neurosis, and that it is frequently associated with obsessions. Such relationships must be taken into account in these difficult cases. Advice that ignores the element of obsessional neurosis is apt to degenerate into the infliction of needless torment. The fantasies associated with masturbation, are always of great importance.1 (g) Lack of Enlightenment or improper Enlightenment. It is hardly necessary to insist upon the fact that a suitable enlightenment concerning the sexual problem must form part of an adequate preparation for life. Women, in especial, have admirably described how favourably their relationship towards their children has been influenced by imparting an enlightenment in terms discreetly chosen and in accordance with the requirements of a sound education. Such statements are confirmed by my own experience. Unfortunately, we often have occasion to note that the very parents who in other respects desire to form their children's minds in every particu- lar, and who wish the young people's hearts to beat in perfect unison with their own, fail to fulfil their responsibilities in the matter of sexual enlightenment. The very narrowness which leads them to deny their children a due measure of freedom, makes them constrained in their attitude towards the sexual problem, and such restraint renders a skilful and ethically sound treatment of sexual topics quite impossible. Prudery or simple timidity makes many parents refrain from any attempt to enlighten their children, although they do not hesitate to repeat the idiotic fables about storks bringing babies. To avoid having to weary my readers and myself with familiar facts, I will content myself with referring to an excellent paper written by Jung when he was still an advocate 1 Cf. Die Onanie, Diskussion der Wiener psychoanalytischen Vereinigung, 1912 ; Stekel, Onanie und Homosexualitit, second edition, 1921. INFLUENCE OF SPECIAL EXPERIENCES 441 of Freudian psychoanalysis.1 He describes the case of a little girl who was told the stork story after the birth of a younger sister. Thereupon she treated her next teacher as a liar, without giving any reason. Anxiety symptoms supervened, and were not relieved until sound enlightenment concerning sexual matters fortunately arrested the aberration which had begun in her love sentiments. It is surely a grave matter that a child should early receive the impression that its parents are lying to it ? Moreover, does not the secrecy with which the sexual life is surrounded tend to awaken the impression that this must be the sphere of dread mysteries ? It seldom happens that a child shuts its eyes after the first decade of life to the wonderful budding process that occurs in the maternal body. But when strong repressions are at work, even much older children may ignore the changes that are taking place in their mother's figure. In the case of the boy who had been eavesdropping (pp. 305 et seq.) when his parents were engaged in sexual intercourse, a brother was born when he was seventeen years old. He was quite un- aware of what w'as about to happen, for the perception of the change in his mother's appearance had been swallowed up by his unconscious. In general, however, children know where babies come from. But as a rule they do not know anything about the pro- cesses of copulation and conception. There are many, far too many, women who marry while still ignorant concerning these facts. Obviously, they did not want to know, for if they had wanted they could have learned. But their elders have always surrounded the sexual organs with taboos, and, as a result of this, all sexual acts seem offensive to them. I knew a hysteri- cal young woman who would not let her betrothed kiss her because she believed that in this way she might be rendered pregnant. I knew another girl who would not even sit on the same sofa with her fiance because of her fear of the results. It will be needless here to trace the enduring evil consequences of such ignorance in the life of many a married pair. In his admirable novel Clara d'Ellebeuse, Francis Jammes has with fine psychological insight depicted the utter ruin of a noble-minded woman owing to her lack of enlightenment 1 Jung, Ueber Konflikte der kindlichen Seele, " Jahrbuch fUr psychoana- lytische und psychopathologische Forschungen," 1910. 442 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS concerning sexual matters. The unhappy heroine, in search of information anent the mystery of love, pieces together various fragments from conversations and letters, and arrives at totally false ideas. Having, in a moment of passion, kissed a man, she believes herself to have been impregnated, and supposes that she will bring intolerable disgrace upon her family. After terrible spiritual conflicts, she kills herself. In most cases, children derive from hole-and-corner con- versations some unclean theory of birth and reproduction which is not disclosed to elders until it has worked incalculable harm and perhaps poisoned the whole life. Here is an instructive example. A girl of about eighteen was sent to consult me because she was suffering from weariness of life, and had conceived an antipathy for every one with the exception of a schoolfellow. Soon after she had first gone to school, at the age of seven or eight, she had exhibited a marked tendency to cut herself off from her parents and from her schoolmates. At first she simply avoided the latter, but when she was about twelve she began to display an aggressive and disdainful manner towards them. During the first period of her troubles she often had a stereotyped anxiety dream. She was going along a straight road leading between two marshes, whence hands were thrust forth to drag her down into the depths. Psychoanalysis readily disclosed the origin of the trouble. Her schoolfellows had made fun of her because she still believed in the Christ child and in the angels that brought babies. They told her that a mother bears the child in her body ; and that if she cannot suckle her baby, people cut off her breasts. A number of other detestable ideas were put into the horrified girl's mind. The anxiety dream discloses the wish that her schoolmates may draw her down into the morass of unclean ideas, and likewise doubtless of unclean actions ; but it also discloses the yet stronger desire to escape from her schoolmates. From her twelfth year onwards, after she had read a book on Buffalo Bill, she would often dream that she was an Indian chief and had slaughtered a number of Pale Faces. Masochism had given place to sadism. In her blood- curdling fantasy the forlorn girl was able to secure a fierce retri- bution ; her conduct in actual life gave expression to the same desire, but in actual life her hate had to be kept within bounds.1 1 Die psychanalytische Methode, pp. 74 et seq. INFLUENCE OF SPECIAL EXPERIENCES 443 It has frequently been my fate to have to do with children which had been enlightened in a perverse manner; these children experienced a severe shock which reacted most injurious!y upon their subsequent development. But one must not consider such an experience apart from the circumstances of the child's life as a whole. The theories of the generative process which children pass on from one to the other are incredibly unpleasant; they are based upon certain correct details and then enlarged upon by casual observations. Usually the young folk tell nobody of their discoveries ; it is only when a morbid symp- tom appears and they come under psychoanalytical treatment that they disclose to an adult the products of their fantasy. Sigmund Freud was well-advised when he gave to the world the most frequent and most important sexual theories of children collected by him during his medical career.1 In addition to the typical theories he mentions, there are, of course, many others of a more individual nature which are often reflected with the utmost precision in morbid symptoms. The child runs a great risk when it is initiated into a know- ledge of procreation in an improper way. Sometimes the information is imparted by a dirty-minded person who takes pleasure in depicting and spreading hateful ideas, who holds up the parents as liars, and drags an innocent auditor into the slough of his own obscenity ; or, again, the child may be told by a person whose moral feelings are unwholesome and perverted by false repressions-one who, in the name of a so-called purity, will sully every natural function. In contra- distinction to these it cannot be sufficiently emphasised that such a sublime teacher of mankind as Jesus spoke with approval and without the slightest prudery of the carnal communion between man and wife, saying: " They are no more twain, but one flesh " (Matthew xix, 4). He who falls away from these moral altitudes, and who publicly or in his secret heart looks upon sexuality as something unclean, despises or hopes to correct the works of the creator. And yet there are so many Christians who seem incapable of rising to a truly chaste, and hence to a truly free and profound, comprehension of the function of procreation ; nay, even among Protestants, whether male or female, a monkish distaste for such dispensa- tions is apt to appear. 1 Sammlung kleiner Schriften zur Neurosenlehre* vol ii, pp. 159-174. 444 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS Nor must we overlook the fact that a child which has been brought up to feel ashamed of these subjects finds it very difficult to adopt a suitable attitude of mind when information is ultimately imparted. An eight-year-old girl who was en- lightened concerning procreation in a perfectly seemly manner, though somewhat prematurely, exclaimed in disgust : " My parents never did such nasty things ! " And when her mother protested that it was perfectly true, the child per- sisted with : " Well I'm sure Mr. A. [a distinguished statesman] would not do anything like that ! " We shall have to return later to the pedagogical side of this matter. The following case will show how extremely careful we must be in our methods. A boy of sixteen came to me for treat- ment. He could find no meaning in life, took no pleasure in anything, was unable to make up his mind as to a career, and though he performed what work fell to his lot with zeal, he did so all the while suffering from the severest inhibitions and with very little success. These conditions came to the fore about two years before the analysis Prior to this, owing to the out- ward circumstances of his life, he had been to a considerable extent cut off from girls' society, and had become somewhat reserved. What had happened ? The thought that life had no meaning made its appearance at the time when he had resolved never to approach a girl. His other difficulties like- wise assailed him at that date, and his will-to-live dwindled. A little while before, his mother, an excellent woman, had enlightened her son, for she had discovered that evil practices were rife at the school he attended. She seized the oppor- tunity of warning him against premarital intercourse and told him about venereal disease. The lad took her information to heart and imagined that in relationships with women there lurked terrible dangers which he could best avoid by a com- plete renunciation of girl companionship. Such a result could only have come about in consequence of numberless other circumstances in the youth's life. Here, likewise, I can give only the barest outline, as indeed has been the case throughout this work. At the age of five the child had discovered that his mother had almost died in childbirth. This partial enlightenment gave him the impression that birth was something sinister. Further, his desire to resemble his gifted and highly respected father came to naught because his INFLUENCE OF SPECIAL EXPERIENCES 445 own aptitudes were poor precisely in those directions where the father excelled. His own qualities could not develop because the whole of his life's program was on false lines. He envied his clever brothers and sisters because they resembled the father. Still, while making due allowance for all these circumstances, it must be admitted that, in her anxiety to impress the boy with the dangers attendant on the life of sex, the mother had been led to exaggeration and had not suffi- ciently taken the wonder-awakening side of the subject into account. That was why the enlightenment had led to repres- sion and had brought about the feeling of aimlessness in the boy's existence. Here we may close the series of our individual cases. A full and systematic presentation of the subject is as yet im- possible and will remain so for many days to come, unless one allows oneself to succumb to vague generalisations. What we have to study, above all, is real life, such vast and important fields of which have hitherto been excluded from the domains of psychology and the science of education. I have merely wished to break new ground, and to stimulate others to further researches in the new world disclosed by psychoanalysis. All that remains to be done in this book is to draw practical conclusions, or rather let us say : Through practical experience to find a way to the discovery of sound methods for the educa- tion of love in children. [The Threat of Castration (note to pp. 432 et seq.). The term " castration" in psychoanalytical literature includes the idea of ampu- tation of the penis as well as that of removal of the testicles. Indeed, when writing of castration anxiety, the castration complex, etc., analysts refer to the former rather than to the latter.-Translators' Note.] PART THREE THE TRAINING OF LOVE IN CHILDREN AND THE TREATMENT OF LOVE'S DISORDERS PREAMBLE CONCERNING OUR TASK AND THE AIM OF EDUCATION An adequate description of the education of love in children would require little less than a systematic treatise on pedagogy. We know that love is one of the central manifestations and functions of mankind. It would be too much to ask the reader, who has already accompanied me on a long road, to make his way ot '.r the great mountain chains and through the difficult passes which we should have to traverse in order to achieve anything like a detailed account of the art of educa- tion. Let me reiterate that I did not undertake to write a systematised treatise. There are, indeed, plenty of such treatises. Suffice it to mention Haberlin's Wege und Irrwege der Erziehung, which is in many respects an admirable study of the subject ; or Lhotzky's really brilliant little manual, Die Seele deines Kindes. What Lhotzky has to bestow upon us from among the treasures of his profound and sterling disposition and his clear and well-trained intelligence is of inestimable value, constituting as it does an eminently desir- able advance in the art of education. Happy are the children whose home guidance is based upon such teaching. For my part, I propose to deal only with a few matters which are apt to be neglected, and which therefore specially need consideration. First of all, let me say a word concerning the aim of educa- tion. Unless we have a definite goal, we are groping in the dark. Most treatises on education are in this respect of little use to the educationist. They tell us, for instance, that the whole task of education is to awaken " the freedom of self- determination." What does this mean ? Our free self- determination is certainly something more than independence of external influences ; it is freedom as regards certain lower tendencies of our own nature, it is the dominion of the moral consciousness over the crude primitive impulses. Few will 449 450 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS deny that this freedom in its highest sense is one of the most sublime aims of education. But the concept of self-deter- mination is extremely vague. The Buddhist who retires into the tomb of his Nirvana, Nietzsche's robber-man, Wilhelm Busch's and Karl Spitzweg's philistine, a Plato, a Confucius, a Rousseau, a Herbart, a John Stuart Mill, and a hundred others, will pay their respects to this nebulous formula. But when we try to deduce from it definite pedagogic rules, it scatters like a flight of pigeons, and we see that we can make no headway with such a truism. Haberlin's description of the aim of education likewise leaves us in the lurch. He tells us : " Education is the act of assisting another-who is the object of education-in the fulfilment of his life's task."1 Coming to details, Haberlin informs us that the aim of education is to promote " the in- ward capacity of the pupil for the fulfilment of his duty, his life's task, his vocation."2 Such trivialities, to which the sage and the Eskimo, the Christian no less than the Turk and the pagan, can all make polite acknowledgments, are of little value. What we want to know is, what is our duty, our life's task, our vocation. Until the educationist has found an answer to these enquiries, he is in the position of a messenger who has been told with much emphasis that the letter with which he is entrusted is of enormous importance, and that he must guard it as the apple of his eye- but he is not told where he is to take it, and the poor devil is dismissed with the urgent injunction to discharge his commission faithfully ! Such counsels can only emanate from persons who sit in Kant's chair without noticing that its legs were broken off a long time ago, persons who treat a century's criticism as if it were so much wind.3 Fortunately in the practical part of his work Haberlin furnishes his readers with more definite guidance than in the introductory philosophical disquisition. It seems to me essential to give a more precise description of the aim of education, with the proviso that no such general formula can completely avoid the danger of ambiguity. The aim of education is to help the pupil towards such a develop- 1 Op. cit, p. 12. 1 Ibid., p. 14. J Cf. Pfister, Psychoanalyse und Weltanschauung, especially the section Psychoanalyse und Ethik, pp. 309-331 ; refer also to the footnote p. 300 supra. Some Applications of Psychoanalysis, pp. 206-223. OUR TASK AND THE AIM OF EDUCATION 451 ment of his powers that he may have both the desire and the ability, lovingly and with a full consciousness of the duties imposed on man by his higher nature, to do the best possible service in promoting the welfare of humanity and the attainment of its highest vocation by our race. The details of this formulation may now be explained. The education is to help. This implies that the educationist will not simply issue orders which the pupil must blindly obey. He must be the liberator, not the dough-kneader; the servant, not the master. The educationist must help the pupil towards the develop- ment of his powers. This implies a due regard for individual talent. The details of an educational program must be determined in accordance with the aptitudes of the pupil rather than in accordance with the desires of the teacher. A factory owner, a high-school teacher, or an artist, who wishes to force his son to pursue the same vocation as himself, or who in any other way tries to check the natural development of the boy's faculties, is making a grave mistake, and will be exceed- ingly likely to foster an aberration. Of course, no attempt should be made to effect a simul- taneous development of all the individual's powers. That would result in the growth of the tares at the expense of the good grain. We cannot serve God and Mammon, virtue and vice. Immoral tendencies must be counteracted. This does not mean that, as F. W. Foerster contends,1 individuality must die if personality is to grow. Personality should rather be regarded as high-grade individuality, as something no less individual. The moral system which would obliterate the uniqueness of the individual, which would fain expunge the qualities that make each one of us differ from all his fellows, and would aim at producing a dead level of mediocrity, is an unwholesome and authoritarian morality. A satisfactory development of personality promotes differentiation from the man of the herd. The pupil must approach his life task lovingly and with a sense of duty. Kant speaks only of the sense of duty, this outlook being responsible for that stern, icy, and iron trend in education which our observations have shown to entail a terrible cramping of the spirit (supra pp. 128 1 Foerster, Schule und Charakter, 1907, p, 99. 452 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS et seq., 189 et seq., 247, 418 et seq.). Such pedagogy is misled by a false psychology. Far profounder was Jesus' insight when he made love the supreme law of life. But the love he advocated was not the love of egoistic hedon- ism. I have already shown that for Jesus, love and the moral law were fused into a unity : love becomes duty and urges to the fulfilment of duty ; and duty is transformed from a rigid " thou shalt " into a cheerful " thou mayst and thou wilt." The tyranny which, according to the Kantian system, an alien ego (utterly unintelligible to the ego of daily experience) must persistently exercise, is broken ; the rod of compulsion has given place to the gentle though strong hand of love. The paternal severity and harshness of the Konigsbergphilosopher, whose doctrine may for persons with repressed love be a false guide rather than a true one, is tempered by an affectionate maternal spirit.1 By the fusion of love and duty, Jesus has for all time bestowed upon love its highest attributes, and any attempt to return to Kant's rigid formalism is foredoomed to failure. My definition plainly indicates that duty is not im- posed by any alien power, but by the nature of the doer, by the higher needs of his own being. Of course these higher demands of our spirit must secure expression, not only in the actual world in which the moral law finds its realisation, but also in their direction towards an absolute will or spirit which heralds itself in the faculties of the human spirit and the life of the world. The attention of the pupil must be primarily drawn towards mankind. This aim will make us reject mysticism, Buddhism, or stoicism, as the philosophy which should guide life. We have seen that egoism and absolute introversion must be regarded as stuntings of human existence. The egoist, even though he be an ascetic to boot, who cuts the social ties that link him to his fellows, misunderstands the nature of man, for the relationship of the individual human being to humanity-at-large is akin to the relationship that obtains between the individual cell and the animal organism. The child must be educated for the service of man. One who has been rightly educated will not merely relinquish pleasure, but will lay aside work, self-sacrifice, and perhaps * It would be interesting to trace the connexion between militarism and Kantianism. OUR TASK AND THE AIM OF EDUCATION 453 even the luxury of sorrow, if such renunciation be demanded of him. A life which is not primarily consecrated to service, is a life of self-contradiction. Nothing but service can trans- figure existence into life. If the radius of service extends no farther than the circumference of humanity, this is because we can form no conception of moral goods beyond that limit. But of course our task is coincident with the religious demand to consecrate the whole of life to God. With the aid of education we must further the welfare of humanity. This recommendation, however, must not be understood in a crudely naturalistic or utilitarian sense, and I was therefore careful to add that the pupil must be led to direct his interests towards the attainment of its highest vocation by the human race. The Gospels speak of a kingdom of God which must be realised both in the individual and in the human race. This universalist outlook can alone do justice to objec- tive reality and to the spirit. Just as the functions of the hand or of the ear can only be understood in relationship to the activities of the whole body and the whole mind, so the true aim of education is unattainable in default of an outlook towards the absolute. The moral principles thus indicated, disclose to us what our aims must be in the education of the love sentiment and in the education of the individual towards love. A THE TRAINING OF NORMAL LOVE IN CHILDREN CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE THE EDUCATION OF EDUCATORS Inasmuch as the guidance of the child's will is determined rather by the teacher's personality and by the involuntary emanations from that personality than by what the teacher says and deliberately does, the education of the child ought to begin with the education of its elders. One who is himself affected with severe crampings of the spirit may be a suitable person for the management of an institute for the culture of neuroses, but he is not likely to train up his pupils to the health and wealth of inward freedom, if luckless children should be placed under his authority. Evidence of special qualifications is demanded from a chiropodist or from a motor driver; and even the vendor of beer, wine, and spirits has to have a licence. But any one is supposed to be competent to undertake the training of that delicate and sacred thing, the mind of a little child. Yet assuredly this task is one of the most difficult and most responsible that any of us have to fulfil. It is true that the most important qualifications of the teacher cannot be inculcated in a course of lectures or ascertained in a public examination. They are accomplishments which depend upon the conjuncture of happy talents with good luck and a fine self-training. We have considered the principles of assimilation and disassimilation in accordance with which a child tries to resemble its parents or to make itself as unlike them as possible (supra p. 345). It became plain to us that both these funda- mental tendencies were universally at work influencing the 454 THE EDUCATION OF EDUCATORS 455 course of love. Jacob's father was given to favouritism, and Jacob resembled Isaac in this respect; although one might have thought that, of all educational errors, favouritism would have seemed to him the most detestable. The strange thing is that the worst mistakes are apt to be so faithfully copied. Here is an instance that comes to my mind. A schoolgirl attracted unfavourable attention by the way in which she gabbled her poems during recitation. Friendly exhortations, ridicule, and examples of a better method, were equally un- availing. The girl would jump up from her place as if moved by a spring, would spout forth her recitation, and would then collapse into her seat once more like the mechanical figure in the Tales of Hoffmann. In other respects she was a diligent and affectionate pupil, so that her teacher was much pleased with her. In conversation with the mother I was told that this young woman (she was sixteen when I was consulted in the matter) was often hot-tempered, refractory, and reserved. Obviously she was neurotic, so I directed my enquiries to the discovery of internal difficulties. I learned that the illegitimacy of her birth was a trouble to her. Her father seldom came to see her, but when he did do so he was very affectionate both in words and deeds. The girl was devoted to him and longed to live with him. It was her hope that she would be able to carry out this plan within a few years. Her home was poorly provided. The mother was overworked in the attempt to secure an adequate livelihood for herself and her daughter, and this made her querulous, peevish, and quarrelsome, so that she had little sympathy to spare for the girl. The gabbling recitation betrayed the wish to escape as soon as possible from extant circumstances and to be taken away to live with the father. The girl detested her mother's snappish ways, and yet she could not forbear opening the sluices of her own eloquence in precisely the same fashion. Assimilative neuroses are also very frequent. I venture to say that gushing displays of affection are especially common in those who really wish to repudiate the parent they are imitating. Love has been mainly repressed, and beneath the threshold of consciousness it luxuriates in copying its exemplar. " I hope to God I shan't be like Father ! " exclaims the son, and promptly shows himself to be a shoot of the paternal tree. Thus are fulfilled the words of the prophet: " The 456 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children's teeth are set on edge " (Jeremiah xxxi, 29). Seeing that the conscious is opposed to the actions dictated in these cases by the un- conscious, it is natural that persons with a materialistic out- look should talk of " inheritance in the blood or the brain," and that those who incline to a spiritualist view should speak of " original sin." But if our psychology probes to the depths, we speedily come to realise to how great an extent the pheno- mena are explicable as the outcome of educational influences and their after-effects in the unconscious. Despite this spiritual parentage, parents are extremely annoyed at such defects in their children, for there is nothing that people detest so much in others as the fault which they themselves possess. It is the old story of the crab scolding the baby crab for walking backwards. The negative counterpart is frequently met with. Hysterical mothers who ooze sentiment, and the spuriousness of whose feelings is the cause of much suffering to their children, are apt to train up their sons to become introverts, and these in their turn are a grief to the mother who is responsible for their unhappy development. Or the father whose narrow religious bigotry makes him a torment to his children, drives them to the adoption of moral, philosophic, or religious views antagonistic to his own, and never realises that the only way in which the children could safeguard their own existence was by such opposite courses. Children whose disposition contrasts in this way with that of their parents, are often sterling specimens ; and if the negativism, the forcible disassimilation, be not unduly exaggerated, they are apt to be of finer type than the disappointed parents. These peculiar relationships were referred to when we were discussing the breaking away from the parents (supra pp. 388 et seq.). How admirably did Jesus voice this duty of breaking away from the parents in pursuit of the highest ideal of truth ! It is not my intention to depict each parental failing from which children have to suffer. I might devote much space to discussion of narcissism, in virtue of which a parent coddles or punishes his or her own self in the child ; in virtue of which a parent refuses to the child what his or her own beloved ego has been denied, or, conversely, satiates the child with what has been lacking to the parental ego. A child may be loved because THE EDUCATION OF EDUCATORS 457 it has qualities which the parents themselves would dearly like to have possessed ; but also in consequence of such wish- identifications the child may come in for a large portion of parental hatred. We should also say something about the amazing transposi- tion of roles which a person may effect as between child and husband ; often such a transposition may occur between a child and a father, thereby bridging the gulf betwixt one generation and the next. It could also be shown that even the differences of sex are slurred, so that we find a daughter who unconsciously is made to personify her own father, the son his own mother, and the child's teeth are set on edge by the sour grape some forefather ate long ago. Other persons can like- wise be pictured in the children, and there will thus arise a judgment and a valuation of the offspring which have no objective foundation. Or, again, we might show how one of the parents will either hate or love the child because the partner who helped to generate it is hated or beloved. The stronger the parental fixations and inhibitions, the greater is the risk to the child that it will have to suffer from such errors of judgment and such transferences of affect. All injustice and partiality, all coddling and spoiling, every senti- mental and sensual petting, may arise out of disturbances in the parents' mental economy without the guilty party being in the least aware of the harm committed. It is therefore necessary to emphasise that the educator by his pedagogical methods very often forces the pupil into the part which his (the educator's') unconscious wishes to realise in the child. One makes the child become, not so much that which the conscious wishes it to be, but rather what the unconscious would like to see carried out. Here we have the key to many, though of course not to all, of the mistakes and failures attendant upon educa- tional methods. Outsiders are frequently able to see through these tricks of the unconscious; but the faulty parent is almost invariably struck with blindness. Thus it happens that a neurotic father who forces his child into aberrant paths by his caustic criticism and cruel severity, may exclaim with the air of injured innocence : " How could my upbringing meet with ill-success ? Has not my child been given a thoroughly harmonious education ? " 458 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS All this goes to prove that it is the duty of those who are responsible for the care of children to rid themselves of any inhibitions which may constitute a danger to these children. I have known not a few neurotic parents, who have suffered from some intolerable trouble, but whose deliverance from it has saved their children from the continuance of a false guidance. Many who have been in imminent peril of unconsciously making their pupils into the veriest rogues-many that have come near to resembling the man of whom Jesus said " it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea "-have experienced a profound change which speedily was mirrored in a complete reform of their methods with the little ones entrusted to their care. I have known fathers who have complained at the manifest avoidance of them by their children ; and yet these same men have come to a clearer understanding of the children's faults and a better comprehension of the reasons for which the children avoided them, so soon as they had seen through them- selves and had learned to control themselves. I have seen teachers who, under the scourge of their own neurosis, have been rendered unable to keep their classes in order or have done so only by having recourse to threats of unworthy punishments ; but these same teachers, as soon as they gained mastery over themselves, have likewise acquired the means of controlling their little flock. For, as is well recognised, he only who has dominion over himself is capable of ruling over others. If we desired to present a complete system we should have, likewise, to mention the ambition of parents which leads them to force their children to achieve what they themselves were unable to attain, thereby making senseless demands upon the youngsters. (Lhotzky perhaps exaggerates a little when he says : "By far the greater number of defective types is due to the ambition of parents.") 1 Or, again, we could devote space to the question of sentimentality which hankers after the love of the child at the expense of moral vigour; or of quarrels between the parents in front of the children, disgraceful lapses in anyone responsible for the care of the young ; or of capriciousness; or of favouritism; and so forth. But we cannot follow all these paths of investigation as we might wish. 1 Op. cit., p. 112. THE EDUCATION OF EDUCATORS 459 Suffice it to realise that the sins of the father and of the mother are visited upon the children, for the latter become mentally tainted. The education of the educator is therefore essential, if there is to be any hope of bringing up children as they ought to be brought up. Nor is it enough to have good schooling in the narrower sense of the term, though I do not for a moment wish to underrate the importance of this matter. But the neurotic or otherwise aberrant psyche of the teacher, acting as unconscious collaborator in the work of education, can play havoc with the most brilliant and conclusive of educational precepts. For this reason I do not consider F. W. Foerster's long-winded injunctions to teachers necessary, even though these instructions contain much that is good. Anyway such precepts must be vivified by a strong personality, otherwise they remain a dead letter. Seeing, however, that the education, or rather reeducation, of the adult is a somewhat utopian demand, we run the risk of an endless recapitulation of educational errors. It is a good thing that even the educator's mistakes may fulfil a higher function : in that they force the child to seek its own enfranchisement and lead it to understand itself. However, it is necessary that the magnitude of the teacher's task of freeing himself from his inhibitions and allowing himself to be freed therefrom shall not be underrated. On the contrary, the longing of every normal human being for perfect intellectual freedom will be strengthened by the recognition that errors in education are endowed with a procreative power for evil. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR TRAINING IN REASONABLE SELF-LOVE i. Education and Over-Education. Some have declared that the principles of a sound education are self-evident. We are told that gifted parents and teachers are instinctively aware of what is right, and that where this natural talent is lacking no pedagogic instruction is of any avail. I regard such views as fallacious. Although, as I have shown in the preceding chapter, moral freedom in the widest sense of the term is the indispensable prerequisite of all true educational science (this must not be taken as implying freedom from all possible hindrances), psychological knowledge and ability are none the less of great value. A teacher will manage his pupils quite differently after he has been properly instructed in peda- gogical theory. We must guard against the mistake of over-education. The word education means " to lead out," and the connotations of the term are sufficiently alarming. Woe to the teacher who wishes to stamp upon the pupil the imprint of his own riper nature-which may perhaps be greatly inferior to that of the pupil. As Nietzsche admirably phrases it, the best we can hope from our teachers is that they should be our liberators. But this liberation must take place in the direction of moral freedom : so that the young hero in the child's heart is cultivated, rather than the little primitive beast; so that the youthful Roland is enabled to slay the dragon. The task of the educator is to encourage the maximum of moral energy, and to mould all the best talents of the pupil in such a way that the undesirable and useless traits of character may find no room for development and may undergo atrophy. But to conceive of the teacher as playing the part of a journeyman baker, and as kneading the dough of the mind, is a horrible caricature of true education. Lichtenberg, a shrewd philosopher, writes: "We may well 460 TRAINING IN REASONABLE SELF-LOVE 461 ask ourselves whether harm cannot be done by over-educating children. I believe that if our pedagogues could do what they would like to do, I mean, if they were able to bring their pupils wholly under their influence, the world would no longer have in it a single great man. The most useful things in our life have never been taught us by anyone." 1 There is a Chinese folk-tale of a magic harp from which only a musical genius could elicit sweet strains. If any but the greatest musician in the world attempted to play upon it, the most horrible discords were heard. Peh Ya, the Prince of Harpers, was the favoured mortal who was able to elicit the enchanting strains. When he lightly touched the strings, a melody of unearthly beauty rose upon the air. In amaze- ment, the emperor asked for an explanation of the mystery. Peh Ya made answer: " Sire, the others failed because they sang only of themselves. I left it to the harp to choose its own song freely, and I really did not know whether the harp was Peh Ya, or Peh Ya was the harp." * Should not this Chinese sage be the model for the teacher ? The harp which is the child's mind must be played upon after the manner of Peh Ya. Then only will it give forth its pure and magic strains. He who has no respect for the mysterious creative energies of the youthful spirit, is unfitted for the sacred task of education. Furthermore, as Goethe puts it, the teacher must have respect, not only for what lies beneath him, but for what stands above him. For there is no child that does not possess certain talents which are lacking to its teacher ; there is none that does not in certain respects stand in advance of its would-be leader. A great part of education is comprised in giving the protection which is needed by the child's weakness. There is much truth in the quatrain : Hast du deine Kinder gern, Dieser Rat sei dir zu frommen : Halte nur die Teufel fern, Engel werden von selbst schon kommen.3 « Aphorismen, p. 25. » E. Korrodi cited this fable in a causerie published in the " Neue Ziircher Zeitung," October 24, 1919. 3 If you love your children, Take this counsel to your heart: Scare away the devils, The angels will come of themselves. 462 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS Of course the protection must only be extended in matters where the child is unable to help itself. We have studied a case (pp. 334 et seq.) which shows how injurious are the effects of encouraging a child in the belief that its father will always come to its aid in critical moments. The result is that the child develops no thought of self-help. How foolish it is, when a child that has fallen could get up perfectly well of itself, that its elders should rush to pick it up, and with clamorous sympathy should increase the emotional disturbance and paralyse the sufferer's will. There can be no doubt that in large measure we rob a child of its best creative energies by perpetually fussing over it. This is the crowning danger to which the only child is exposed. Self-love is a necessary element in the character of the unsophisticated human being. This assertion will outrage many of those who believe themselves to possess a monopoly of Christian truth. Yet no less a teacher than Jesus has expressly recognised the importance of self-love in the funda- mental commandment, one of the two on which hang all the law and the prophets, " Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self." True, he appends an injunction to self-denial, saying, " If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me," but we must remember that this self-denial includes self-love within it. But we must not confuse self-love with selfishness. What is censurable is to cultivate the ego to such an extent that other duties and affections are neglected. In truth, however, such neglect of others is a neglect of the ego, for it is a restric- tion of the noblest talents, of those which comprise the most splendid privileges of the spirit. One who cultivates his ego in such a manner will unquestionably become a spiritual cripple. 2. Self-Love and Selfishness. An ethical self-love is as sharply distinguished from selfish- ness as from self-contempt and self-suppression. Psycho- analytical research has shown beyond dispute that the forcible destruction of the delight in one's own ego, of the little stirrings of pride which are the natural outcome of work well done, of the agreeable sense of gratification which always accompanies 3. Effects of disordered Self-Love. TRAINING IN REASONABLE SELF-LOVE 463 satisfactory progress, may gravely endanger the integrity of the personality. Adler writes narrowly of " organic inferiority," failing moreover to distinguish it from discontent on account of the inferiority of individual organs. Neverthe- less there is a sound core to his teaching, which would have been of even greater value had he pointed out that this organic inferiority only does harm when it is associated with a lack of love. We have learned, likewise, that a feeling of purely mental inferiority may work havoc in the mind, especially when the inferiority is held up to public contumely. Such unfeeling treatment of a child will probably induce melancholy, neurosis, or a persistent dull exasperation. Deprivation of simple pleasures is another cause of injury to the delicate spirit of the child. We have seen that the rose of the higher joys can only flourish when grafted upon the briar standard of the elementary pleasures, and that the glorious blossom will perish if the briar standard withers. Finally we must remember that if a child be allowed no freedom, and have no experience of games and cheerful comradeship with other children of its own age, an atrophy of self-love may ensue. If the restrictions are but partial, an arrogant hostility towards comrades may be displayed, and we have learned that this represents the endeavour to drown a more or less unconscious sense of inferiority. The annihilation of healthy self-love is therefore an almost unpardonable crime, and the parents who are responsible for it will have to pay dearly for their error. For a time, perhaps, they will be delighted that their child is so dutiful and so unassuming, but sooner or later they will have to realise how much harm they have done-to learn that, thanks to them, their child has forfeited its power for enjoyment, has remained an infantile and helpless creature, and has been cheated of the greater part of its happiness and its efficiency. Such children grow up to a shadowy, grey, vacant, and arid existence. Many are not even aware of their own impoverishment. Others, more fortunate, find compensation in a piety estranged from the realities of life. Most of them, however, suffer terribly. They cannot give love to their neighbour, for they say that this asks too much from themselves, who have gone empty away. All those who have been deprived of healthy opportunities for self-love, so that they can no longer enjoy innocent pleasures, 464 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS are in truth egoists. They are egoists even when their egoism seeks expression and reasons for self-commendation in the form of an eager pursuit of the common weal and in that of self-sacrifice for others. The assertion that love of one's neighbour is nothing but masked egoism, is utterly false ; but it finds a specious justification in the characteristics of those whose lives are under the spell of self-hatred and self- contempt. 4. Control versus Repression of Selfish Impulses. The campaign against self-love is the reaction against the natural endeavours to push self-love to an extreme. In general, human nature inclines towards an access of self-love and self-assertion. But we must be careful to avoid pushing the reaction against this too far. When the interest of the self conflicts with the higher interest of the community, the elementary egoistic impulse must not be repressed, for this would increase its power. The egoistic impulse must be controlled. If repressed, it is treasured up in the unconscious, and retains its power there ; if controlled, it remains accessible to consciousness, but yields to considerations which are recognised to be more cogent, to be morally superior. This distinction is of immense importance to the development of the amatory life. Love of one's neighbour is inconceivable without control of the exaggerated claims of self-love. Self-love is ethical and good, as the foundation of the higher love of humanity-at-large, and as the basis of all that we call civilisation. In default of these higher aims, it is unethical, and as such must be held in leash by the educator. 5. Management of the newborn Infant. As a means for the cultivation of reasonable self-love, the care of the body is of the first importance. But this, too, must be guided by moral principles, if the culture of aberrations is to be avoided. Difficult educational problems force them- selves upon us as regards the very first hours of life. Should the nurse pay immediate attention to every cry, and hasten to comfort the baby ? I have known a number of zealous educationists, and among them medical practitioners of wide experience, who contend that on the first night of its life the baby should simply be cleared out of the mother's bedroom TRAINING IN REASONABLE SELF-LOVE 465 and allowed to scream to its heart's content. They declare that the results of this method have been excellent. My own experience has not been extensive, but it has been enough to make me dubious as to the wisdom of such counsel. On the other hand, I have known mothers, and also fathers, who looked upon the infant's first whimper as an alarm signal, calling for immediate attention whether by day or by night. By this method they have trained up a little despot who enforces his wishes in season and out of season. Many mothers have had to pay dearly and for long years because during the first days of their baby's life they have yielded too readily to the dictates of natural affection. Busch writes felicitously of such an infant: Denn fruh belehrt ihn die Erfahrung, So bald er schrie, bekam er Nahrung.1 When the little rogue is led by such experience to make a liberal use of the dinner-bell nature has given him in his larynx, can we blame him ? One hardly expects chivalrous forbearance at so early an age ! Many mothers thus unconsciously come to submit to the dictatorship of their offspring. Although they grumble at the disturbance to their own ease, they are really fulfilling their own pleasure. Thereby, however, they do grave injury to the child, in which they cultivate an incurable tendency to regard itself as the centre of the universe. Subsequently, as it grows up, the spoiled child finds that the world will not grant all its wishes so promptly, and conse- quently it acquires a misanthropic contempt for life. It is essential, therefore, that the attention paid to the newborn child should be guided, not by sentimental sympathy, but by sound insight and lofty affection. This is all that the welfare of the infant demands, and the parents will not yield to unreasonable claims. 6. Affective Training : the Play Way ; Tenderness and Excess of Tenderness. A child soon learns whether its mother is affectionate or cold. It drinks in spiritual food as well as material food, and its cradle becomes a forcing frame for gratitude and longing. 1 Experience soon teaches him. He has only to yell and he gets his food. 466 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS Play soon constitutes an additional influence in the formation of character. Play is, in fact, an extremely serious matter both for teacher and pupil. Men and women who have neither time nor aptitude for playing with their children, have no right to bring children into the world. Play is a symbolical anticipation of the chief duties of life, and is therefore nothing less important than a preparatory school for life. Even love has to be learned. If parents show the child that they do not think it worth while to take part in its amusements, how can its reasonable self-love be cultivated in normal fashion ? The inclination towards a spiritual community with mother and father is present from the very beginning of life. Should this longing be left ungratified, there is an impairment of the child's healthy attitude towards itself. The hour that the father devotes to playing with his children, is an hour devoted to God's service. God's sweetest cherubs dance attendance upon merry children. When a father who is a man of distinction crawls about on all fours with his child riding on his back, his attitude is no less worthy of respect than when he is in the professorial chair or in the presidential seat of the legislative assembly. Only a dullard will be ashamed of being a child among children. But behind this play must stand all the seriousness of life. Parents who can only play the fool with their children grow' contemptible in their children's sight, and are regarded as no better than toys. That is why it has long been a principle of the art of education that indulgence should not be offered as a matter of course, as something to which a child is entitled without making any return. Haberlin does well to insist on this once more. Freud, too, expressly declares that a child must learn the need for earning its parents' tenderness. Un- questionably, parents must play with their children, but not by making toys of their little ones; as they play with their children they must lead the youngsters on towards higher things, towards a just appreciation of the duties of life. Tenderness is a beautiful and necessary thing, but it must not degenerate into a doting affection. Tickling a baby upon the rump, and kissing it anywhere and everywhere, are far from being so harmless as fond mothers imagine. Especially when a mother's relations with her husband are not all that might be desired, an excess of tenderness towards the child TRAINING IN REASONABLE SELF-LOVE 467 is apt to be a dangerous substitute for unsatisfied passions. Let me beg the reader to remember that these warnings are based upon wide experience. They are not intended to discountenance the innocent joys of motherhood, but they cannot be lightly ignored. It is perfectly true that, within limits, physical caresses are not merely harmless, but necessary. Among the methods of affective training which promote the development of a reasonable self-love, must be numbered the tenderness which leads a parent to come to a child's help in difficulties, to offer protection, consolation, appeasement, and so on. A child must be taught that its parents treasure it, but do not idolise it; that they love it, but do not uncondi- tionally shower love upon it in the absence of any suitable response on its part. 7. Direct Instruction. This, too, must play its part in a satisfactory training. But, from the first, the child must be encouraged as far as possible to find out things for itself. We must not pour in knowledge through a funnel, but must awaken the pupil's interest; we must not cram the memory, but must stimulate zeal for and delight in personal observation and independent thought-these are the fundamentals of mind training. There- by the sense of self-esteem is promoted. Erroneous views must not be made mock of, or retailed slightingly to strangers; and sound views must not be extolled as miracles of cleverness. 8. Education of the Will. Nothing strengthens self-respect more than the successful education of the will. The most vigorous self-respect will collapse unless it finds expression in action. Before all, will must be will-to-action. The educator must stimulate the development of such a will by inciting to useful activities that are not unduly difficult. Should the child not succeed at the first attempt, the elders must bridle their sympathies, and must not be too ready to help (as sentimental mothers are apt to be) ; they must let the child go on trying. I heard of a boy who was three years old when sent to post a letter. Finding himself too short to reach the hole in the pillar box, instead of trying to extort help by bursting into tears, he reflected for a moment, and then returned home for a hassock 468 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS to stand upon. I need hardly say that this youngster grew up into a man of vigorous will. But let us suppose that a compassionate elder had happened to pass, and, seeing the little chap in a difficulty, had, in the friendliest way possible taken the letter out of the child's hand and posted it. He would have deserved an exemplary punishment-let us say, a fine of £50 to be given to a reformatory-for having wantonly stolen from a child an admirable opportunity for independent thought and action ! A child is often encouraged to cultivate its desires. The parents will stand with it in front of a shop window and ask what it would best like to have. There is a kindred danger in fairy tales, though the educational value of these is in other respects undeniable. But the fairy tale pays no regard to the exigencies of reality ; it pictures a world conjured up by the spell of desire. Heinrich von Kleist writes sagely on this matter : Not from the heart's mere wishes sprouts The lovely and divine plant of happiness. With the ploughshare of labour, Man must break up the hard ground of destiny, Must himself work for the coming harvest And sow deeds in the open furrows. Especially applicable to childen who are prone to manifest their vital impetus in an excess of feeling which does not eventuate in action, is Nietzsche's fine and true saying : Will brings deliverance. But the aim towards which the will is directed is of primary importance. Misdirected will leads to slavery. The will must reach out towards actions, not towards material goods. A child must be taught to find more gratifica- tion in doing something efficient than in owning something valuable. It must aspire rather to be good than to be highly regarded by others. The will-to-power is not a primary characteristic of human nature, but the product of a complicated development. The desire for assimilation to a domineering father, vaingloriousness, the endeavour to drown a sense of inferiority, and many other factors, may contribute to the will-to-power. In my own experience, the children and young persons in whom the will-to-power was most conspicuous, were all seeking compensation for a sense of inferiority. TRAINING IN REASONABLE SELF-LOVE 469 Strict disciplinarians tell us that we must break a child's will, but the attempt to do so will only create repressions. Our aim must rather be to ennoble the will to the utmost. A wise teacher will not try to cudgel a base wish out of existence, but will endeavour to awaken loftier desires. If he is successful, the affect is transferred from the lower wish to the higher. This is the path of sublimation. I must content myself with the foregoing hints concerning the cultivation of reasonable self-love. Careful study will enable us to recognise that he alone loves himself truly who does not love himself alone. All genuine self-love has among its noblest factors (in default of which it would be crippled) love for neighbours. If it does not contain this element, self-love (as we have shown above, pp. 341 et seq.) degenerates into self-contempt or into delusion of grandeur. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE TRAINING IN LOVE OF ONE'S NEIGHBOUR i. Love reciprocates Love. Properly trained self-love promotes love towards the neigh- bour. Though the interest in self may develop rather more quickly, I am of opinion, nevertheless, that, from the very first day of life, altruistic feeling is aroused or at least the way to its development is prepared. The means we recommended for the evolution of a correct attitude towards the self, are equally serviceable in the case of the social virtues : care of the body and of the mind gives wings to the inborn need for love in the child ; and we are amazed to see, in spite of all imaginable errors in education (errors which are constantly being repeated), how difficult it is to destroy a child's natural impulse towards love. The child must, indeed, have an immense fund of generosity to draw upon. Still, I wish to elaborate a few of the before-mentioned principles. Love reciprocates love. " Only love can lead to love." That which is voiced in the ancient hymn is the key to the whole problem of education. The child must be aware of how dear it is to the parents. Its whole being craves that they should devote themselves to its welfare. We often notice that children handed over to strangers in the first years or even the first months of life never subsequently achieve really cordial relationships with their parents ; this has been the case even when the parents have been hindered by poverty from caring for the little one, and when, later, they have showered love upon the child. ... It is as great a sin of commission against a child to board it out, as to allow it to play in the dingy streets and to deprive it of real playgrounds. We must not forget that the first years of life are the most impressionable for the whole subsequent development. How true in this 470 TRAINING IN LOVE OF ONE'S NEIGHBOUR 471 connexion are the beautiful lines of Otto Ernst in his little book concerning big and little people : Geh fleissig um mit deinen Kindern, hab' Sie Tag und Nacht um dich und liebe sie, Und lass dich lie ben einzig schone Jahre ! Denn nur im engen Traum der Kindheit sind Sie dein ! 1 The child must be able to repose absolute confidence in the kindly disposition of the educator. The certainty of the fact, " I am loved, understood, protected, appreciated," calls forth the very best from the child, and passes like a breath of fresh air through the springtime of life. Poverty and sickness are borne with easy resignation in such an atmosphere of love, which enfolds the child as if in a creative and divine mystery. Good humour must never cease to prevail in the nursery. Much scolding engenders antipathy and defiance, which in its turn may lead to callousness ; pedantry grips the delicate wings of the soul in its rough hands and ruins the exquisite bloom of the colours. But good humour salves the wounded heart and lubricates the machinery of the mind. An educator without good humour is like a lark without its song. The god-given flame of joy must be guarded as a holy of holies in the sanctuary of the nursery. But it must be a genuine, a childlike joy. Unspoiled children are not merely virtuosi in the art of laughter ; they are the greatest masters in the art. Why do we, by our stupid interference, destroy their magical power of creating from the merest trifles a whole world of delight and an abundance of joy ? Does not Goethe's quatrain apply throughout the whole of life ? 2. Good Humour and Cheerfulness. Mit viclem lasst sich schmausen, Mit wenig lasst sich hausen, Dass wenig vieles sei, Schafft nur die Lust herbei.2 1 From : Von kleinen und grossen Leuten. Be ever with your children, keep Them day and night near you and love them, And let them love you just for these beautiful years ! For only in the narrow dream of childhood are They yours 1 » One needs a great deal for a banquet. Whereas little is enough for a place to live in ; That that little is a great deal Is part of the pleasure. 472 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS Only philistines and bad psychologists will demur to this scintillating truth. Schiller tells us : " Happy courage helps us through ; to do something in joyfulness ensures success ; joyful people are not only happy but are as a rule good as well, without envy and useless worrying. Malice and spitefulness induce reserve, gloom, and inattention." He who teaches others to be cheerful in all circumstances, bestows wealth. But true joy springs from a pure and loving heart. Without the art of being cheerful, the child succumbs to a mercenary spirit, and we know that he who makes a business of life invariably makes a bad business of it. Precisely because psychoanalysis has taught us that the individual always returns to childhood's days when faced by an obstacle to his vital impetus, we cannot be too nice in our care of childhood's happy garden. 3. Seriousness and Strictness. Here we are faced by the obverse of the educator's task. We must enter a warning against love which provides pleasure but forgets about the obligations pleasure entails. This is how the sensualist is fashioned; no one with depth of character is thus created. Children which have been brought up in this way will, when they reach adulthood, have little thanks to give the parents who are responsible for so fallacious an outlook upon life, inasmuch as such children when they attain to manhood or to womanhood will have to make up in suffering for the lost opportunities of earlier days. Considering it to be an awful example of moralising jingle, Karl Hase, in his history of the church, quotes a stanza from a hymnal. But the moral is not so bad after all. Here are the lines : Gross ist, Ihr Eltern, Eure Pflicht: Verzartelt Eure Kinder nicht ! Gewohnet sie zur rechten Zeit Zu niitzlicher Geschaftigkeit ! 1 Prosy to a degree ! But even dry bread contains a certain amount of nutriment. For education in the home must be, 1 Hase, Kirchengeschichte, Part iii, 2, p. 349. Great is your task, you parents : Do not pamper your children 1 Accustom them from early days To be busied at useful things. TRAINING IN LOVE OF ONE'S NEIGHBOUR 473 among other things, the mirror of life. And life rings true to the pedantic words of the homely poetaster. A certain strictness of demeanour is necessary if we are to bring the child to realise that if it makes claims upon life, life in its turn has expectations from the child. But let me hasten to add, that the strictness must never amount to harshness ! The parents must fulfil their sublime function, not only as representatives of daily life with its injustices and cruelties, but also as representatives of the highest, the absolute power that presides over life. This makes grave moral demands; but the gravity is itself none other than the expression of perfect love. Genuine strictness is free from arbitrariness ; it does not want to play the master for the pleasure of showing its power ; it commands and it forbids only that which, after mature consideration, it considers good and therefore possible of accomplishment; but, having come to a decision, it insists upon fulfilment. And just as the sun which at dawn flashes upon the giant mountain spurs, also at eventide sheds its rays in golden glory over a peaceful garden landscape, so will the beneficent lamp of goodness enlighten strictness. He who believes that the chance desires of the child should determine the path of its education instead of the child's true needs, is himself a child and in want of education. The child's wishes constitute an important raw material which the artist's soul of the educator will have to manipulate with reverence, and will have to bear lovingly in mind. Humane, wise strictness will never hurt the feelings needlessly, and will never tire of searching out the mildest methods for the attain- ment of the goal; it will never use force where friendly guidance will suffice. Such strictness will not shrink even from small deceptions in order that the child may not feel its freedom of action impinged upon : but truth must never be outraged. Wishes and longings must not be ruthlessly disregarded, for then repressions ensue. They must, rather, be sublimated, and replaced by nobler and joy-creating desires. 4. Discipline and Freedom. A child must respect its parents, but must do so in the right manner. The scriptural injunction, " Honour thy father and thy mother " must not be considered a sufficient ground for demanding respect. Nor is it an adequate reason that the 474 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS parents are stronger than their children, and can show their strength in disagreeable ways. Still less are children likely to respect their parents if they find that the grown-ups seem to have formed a secret league against children in order to keep them in subjection. The attempt to enforce respect by such motives will be apt to cause embitterment. Much harm is often done to a religious-minded child by a misunder- standing of the fifth commandment, and it is incumbent upon the teacher of religion to counterpose the superior authority of the heavenly father to the authority of the earthly parent, which is so often conscienceless, foolish, and destructive. There is only one right way of winning authority, and that is to employ the heart-compelling power of superior insight and goodness. Foerster expresses the matter very well: " The essential thing is that the demands of discipline shall not be imposed merely from without, after the manner of a drill- sergeant, or by appealing to base and sensual motives. We must show their connexion with the innermost personality of human beings, and must translate them into the language of that personality. We must show that it is by discipline that the personality frees itself from the tyranny and the caprices of selfishness, and gains control over the life of the senses." 1 The authority of the educator must never be used to suppress the free development of the pupil. The teacher must never aim at inducing a slavish subjection, at securing a blind imitation, at making the pupils ignore the dictates of their own judgment and their own conscience. These errors, which always entail aberrations of the love sentiment, must be sedulously avoided. The child must be encouraged to use its own judgment. When that judgment seems at fault, the better course must be affectionately indicated, and on no account must the mistake be so strongly underscored that the child's pleasure in spontaneity is embittered. On the contrary, the elders must do their utmost to incite a child, inconspicuously, to independent moral activity. The intelligent guide will never forget that, in the child, forces superior to his own are slumbering ; and that as the age of discretion is approached the relationship of authority and obedience must gradually be replaced by one of free affection. When obstacles are 1 Foerster, Schule und Charakter, p. 114. TRAINING IN LOVE OF ONE'S NEIGHBOUR 475 imposed to this natural and morally indispensable process of enfranchisement, the child will either become unloving and rebellious, or will develop a servile disposition. One of the commonest causes of neurosis is the inner conflict between self-determination, on the one hand, and the paternal (or, almost as often, the maternal) will on the other.1 It is well for parents and teachers when they are able to choose the right moment for loosening the bonds of authority, so that their charges may be able, in conformity with the development of their own spiritual freedom-without undue precipitation, but equally without any retardation of the natural ripening process-to pass from the position of subordinates to that of friends. Thus authority is merely the preparatory school on the way to freedom, for the ascent to the glorious heights must be made through narrow gates and up steep paths. "It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth," we read in the Lamentations of Jeremiah (iii, 27). But the yoke must not be too heavy, nor must it be artificially imposed. Life itself imposes enough moral demands to keep us from growing soft. Parents should above all be the protectors and dispensers of joy. Their entry into the room should make the children's faces beam. It is, therefore, a rash venture for parents to undertake the scholastic education of their own children. Even to help a child in its home work is apt to have a bad effect on the relationship between parent and child, for to the child the parent will soon come to seem an extortionate school- master. There are no ideal parents, and we may congratulate our- selves that all educators have faults. If they were faultless, they would have to mend their ways ! How would a child brought up by ideal parents and teachers ever learn to adapt itself to a world which is so often hostile. The whole development of love revolves around the two poles of cheerfulness and severity. But severity must be only a means towards the attainment of higher joys. Sit rigor, sed non exasperans, Sit amor, sed non emolliens ! ' 1 Vide supra pp. 388 et seq. 2 Strictness which does not embitter. Love which does not soften. 476 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS 5. Rewards and Punishments. The foregoing quotation is equally applicable to rewards and punishments. I do not disapprove of the practice of rewarding children for exceptional performances; but the reward should not be an incitement to effort, it should be a recognition after the work is done. In fact, such a gift is not strictly speaking a " reward." But the recognition makes the performance of duty agreeable to the child, and I have seen no reason to believe that children come into the world as ready- made Kantians. Jesus himself, at the beginning of his public career, talked frankly of reward; only in the later stages of his ministry did he spiritualise the idea of reward, subordinating it to the divine grace. Herein we have an example for teachers. But a child must never be led to regard reward as a sort of payment. Consequently, we must more and more come to depend upon spiritual gifts as rewards-the recognition that work has been well done, praise in the presence of others, and commendation in a private interview. To an increasing extent, as the child grows up, it should be made to realise that the best of all rewards is the consciousness of duty done; until at length, in the highest phase of the love development, even the last wrapping of unselfish love falls away. Such an upward progress, which in actual practice can be considerably diversified, may also be regarded as a process of sublimation. Punishment is apt to play a sinister part in the evolution of love. Under the influence of punishment, a truthful child may become a liar, and lying may become an obsession. The matter of corporal punishment has already been discussed. I am definitely opposed to it on principle, although I admit that it does not always do harm, and may in many cases do good. But even in the most favourable circumstances, we do not know our pupils well enough to be sure of what we are doing when we inflict corporal punishment. We seldom realise what harm has been done until grave aberrations have been induced. None but rule-of-thumb educators will refuse to take these facts into consideration, and will declare that we are entitled to ignore the possibility of morbid inheritance and to disregard the level of cultural development. If these ignorant advocates of the free use of the rod were to find their own children being injured as gravely as they themselves TRAINING IN LOVE OF ONE'S NEIGHBOUR 477 injure the children of others (vide supra pp. 401 et seq.) perhaps they would revise their estimate. Punishment must never arouse the impression that the teacher has been affronted by disobedience and is taking his revenge. As Rousseau has admirably put it, punishment must be no more than the inevitable consequence of the child's behaviour. If a child tells a lie, deprive it of a pleasure which presupposes trust. Long experience has shown that punish- ment should never be administered in anger. It must not have even the semblance of arbitrariness. Nor must it injure the child's self-respect. For this reason Foerster rightly con- demns the use of the rod. Punishment must not impair the child's belief in the teacher's goodness. It must stimulate the child's best impulses of love and conscience. It will then promote love and respect, and will strengthen the power of self-determination and the dominion of the noblest traits of character. Invariably before administering punishment, the teacher must examine his own conscience, asking himself : " Are not you the one who should be punished ; was not the primary error yours ? " When there is frequent need for punishment, there has certainly been something wrong with the education. The first and best preventive in this matter is the conduct of the father and the mother. A sound training will avert the development of aberrations. When good grain grows abundantly in the field of the child's spirit, there is no room for tares. Whenever punishment seems called for, the educator must be careful to enquire whether the misconduct has not been the outcome of crampings of the life impulse. In the East, cruel drivers are glad when their horses have sores, because here the animal feels the whip most keenly. The punishment that hurts a healthy child very little, may cause intense suffering to one that is sick. To punish all children alike in a family or a class is really to punish some children much more than others. In doubtful cases, therefore, give the preference to milder measures. Occasional, and even numerous, storms of punishment followed by a clearing of the air, are much less distressing to a child than incessant correction, nagging, and carping criticism. This latter is often a mask for arrogance on the 478 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS part of the teacher, or for moroseness, or for some other mood that is the outcome of repressions. A mask, do I say ? But often the teacher's recognition of his own weakness is all too plain. The pupil is the scapegoat for the teacher's sins, and for his incapacity to get the better of them. There are far too many of these child, scapegoats up and down the country, and immeasurable harm is done in this way. Is it not better that a child should learn by its own mistakes, than that it should suffer from perpetual upbraiding ? If a child stumbles and falls, and to the smart there is superadded a sermon on paying better attention, what is gained beyond that the annoyance at the mishap is transferred to the disciplinarian ? Busch sings : Norgeln ist das Allerschlimmste, Keiner ist davon erbaut ; Keiner fahrt, und war's der dummste, Gern aus seiner werten Haut.1 Let us give up the preposterous idea that children must never do anything foolish ; or that if they should do something foolish, a superior grown-up must promptly improve the occasion ! A friendly smile exhibits far more educational wisdom than a shower of reprimands. Let us quote good Father Busch once more : Spare deine guten Lehren Fur den eigenen Genuss. Kaum auch wirst du wen bekehren, Zeigst du wie man's machen muss. Lass ihn im Galoppe tollen Reite ruhig deinen Trab. Ein zu ungestumes Wollen Wirft von selbst den Reiter ab.J 1 Busch, Schein und Sein, p. 63. There is nothing so bad as nagging, Which never did anyone good ; No one, however stupid, wants To hurt his own precious skin. » Ibid., p. 26. Save your excellent precepts For your own consumption. They won't influence anyone. Set a good example. Let the other fellow gallop madly, Ride at your own quiet trot. Too impetuous a will Will soon throw the rider. TRAINING IN LOVE OF ONE'S NEIGHBOUR 479 In other works I have repeatedly referred to asceticism,1 and in this book I have occasionally alluded to its consequences (pp. 290 and 422). But let us make up our minds exactly what we mean by the term. Haberlin's definition is clear : " By asceticism, in the widest signification, we understand the adoption, on principle, of a negative attitude towards the im- pulsive life, together with the general tendency to curb the impulses."2 This definition is in conformity with the history of the word asceticism. Foerster waters down its significance to make it mean nothing more than the practice of self-mastery,3 although in his earlier writings he inclined towards an ethic of renunciation of the world. In the course of the present exposition we have frequently had occasion to show that the forcible curbing of the natural impulses leads to pathogenic repressions, and the advocacy of such curbing is directly opposed to the doctrines of Jesus and to the teachings of personal hygiene. But as regards Foerster's recommendation of moderate asceticism, we have the less occasion to demur to it in proportion as the exercise of a repressive will power is itself moderate. However, the following facts must never be ignored. 1. In all persons there is an urge towards self-torment; it may be feeble and harmless, it may be fairly strong, and it may be very powerful and therefore dangerous ; in any case, ascetic practices encourage its manifestations. In many neurotics we may observe real orgies of masochism, which may make them avoid the possibilities of cure, although they may themselves be unaware of their subtle self-indulgence. Many whom Foerster would term ascetics, labour under the burden of this vicious algolagniac lust, and behind the mask of self-education they play a game with themselves in which they make use of loaded dice. One of my pupils, who engaged in ascetic exercises to strengthen his will, suddenly lapsed into the practice of masturbation, thus manifesting the sexual background of his self-tormenting lust. Asceticism often desexualises such desires, encouraging the sinister need for 6. Asceticism. 1 Die psychanalytische Methode, pp. 469 et seq. ; also F. W. Foerster- ein Psychanalytiker ? p. 25. 1 Wege und Irrwege der Erziehung, p. 128. 3 Jugendlehre, p. 26. 480 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS the self-infliction of all kinds of supererogatory sufferings, and mishaps. Martyrs' crowns are sometimes spurious, and asceticism has mixed the paste with which the tinsel has been stuck to the cardboard. 2. When marked inhibitions are present, even the most cruel of ascetic practices will fail to bring about moral enfran- chisement, whereas they will increase the sense of powerlessness, forlornness, and moral worthlessness. I have known many unfortunate wretches whose sterile asceticism has undermined their self-respect and has driven them to despair. 3. Asceticism is an artificial withdrawal of the ego from social ties and from the natural sphere of duty, concentrating the moral energies upon the self instead of exercising them in the performance of obvious tasks. It does not seem to me laudable that one who is striving to overcome avarice should throw his money out of the window. I should approve, on the other hand, what may be called a Protestant and natural exercise of the will which should lead to the use of this hoarded money for the relief of a neighbour's distress. The daily round of duties is the appropriate sphere for the training of moral energy. Foerster's artificial asceticism seems to me as super- fluous as would be the recommendation of deep breathing to a mountaineer or genuflexion exercises to a woodcutter. 4. The practical value of moderate asceticism is, as far as my experience goes, very small, being infinitely less than that derivable from devoting the energies to some charitable or just action. I consider it very important that parents, without adopting a dictatorial tone, should from time to time recommend their children to do some loving service, not only by taking a turn of work at home, but by benefaction in a wider circle, as by providing a Christmas treat for the needy, the devotion of superfluous income to the common weal, and the like. But here, likewise, there must be no compulsion ; only an incite- ment to a sacred joy. Children are, indeed, happy when they can make others happy. 7. Confidential Talks. Confidential talks between parents and children are of inestimable value. In his popular writings, Pestalozzi has admirably described the beauties and the blessings of such an TRAINING IN LOVE OF ONE'S NEIGHBOUR 481 exchange of ideas. The child will express its innermost joys, needs, and longings, will explain what depresses it and uplifts it, in the full confidence that its parents will understand and sympathise. Much illness can be avoided if repression be prevented by intercourse with loving elders. 8. Self-Education. Many persons insist that the aim of education is self- education. In certain respects I am prepared to agree. The deliberate imposition of an alien will comes to an end ; the pupil must vigorously seize the rudder of the boat to which his own life is committed, mould his own nature, and strive to draw nearer to the moral ideal. But careful consideration shows that we cannot dispense with education from without. Our neighbours, wife, child, superiors, inferiors, great writers, every-day associates, are continually, asked or unasked, using hammer and chisel upon our statue. He who boasts that no one can influence him is mistaken, or writes himself down a monument of petrifaction. Anyone under ninety should be ashamed of supposing himself beyond the need of education- and even at ninety there may be a good deal to learn ! But it is true that as we grow older we become less malleable to influences from without, and that we have, more and more, to work upon ourselves from within. True self-education primarily consists of the recognition that one is a member of a community, of an organism that is world-wide, and that one has to think, feel, and act accordingly. The problem of sexual enlightenment can only be solved as part of a sound general training. No formula and no counsel avails, if the setting of a good education be lacking. Children have to be trained to a sense of shame, but even in this field great blunders may be committed if the problem is approached incautiously (supra pp. 435 et seq.). Every endeavour must be made to avoid inducing repression, and it is therefore expedient to lead the child gradually, without arousing horror or disgust, to realise the necessity of veiling the body and of turning away from the contemplation of sexually stimulating sights. Many words are not needed, example usually suffices, or the quiet carrying out of the measures which seemliness 9. Sexual Enlightenment. 482 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS demands. Enlightenment alone will not bring about the desired end. The most advanced advocates of enlightenment agree that enlightenment is not everything, but that the educa- tion of the impulses is required to boot. And it is precisely here that a sound education proves of so great advantage. Again, the sex enlightenment of children can only prove successful in those cases where perfect confidence exists between offspring and parent. Freud recommends that we answer a child's enquiries only to the limit of its powers of understanding ; that is to say, we must not blurt out everything at once, but gradually confide the more intimate details. Such advice presupposes that the child has come to its parents with questions; unfortunately, however, this is by no means always the case. It is, further, rightly demanded, that the child shall be made to feel all the beauty and dignity of procreation. But such a result is not achieved unless the character has been built up on a foundation of pure feelings. Again, the child must not be led to suspect that there are grounds for alarm in the natural processes ; on the contrary, it must feel that they are something great and glorious, bringing joy in their train, something that can be won only through the efforts of the personality as a whole ; the image of the parents must be made to appear, if not radiating sunshine, at least suffused with a starry light. This, likewise, is possible only when there exists a cordial affection for the parents. Thus the most beautiful path to the love for the spouse is by way of the love for the parents. Seclusion from the opposite sex, foolish fairy tales about birth, prudery and cowardice, arouse disquieting expectations and false hypotheses and make the task of enlightenment far more difficult. Often the enlightenment can only be achieved at the cost of the child's loss of faith in the teacher's veracity ; such an issue is much to be deplored. Under normal conditions, enlighten- ment which does not merely describe the natural processes but also reveals their sublimeness and their majesty, has a powerful influence for good upon the whole development. Opinions diverge greatly as to the best time to impart sexual knowledge. I see no objection to the child's being informed when it first goes to school as to where babies come from. Little girls so often acquire undesirable theories as to birth, and therefore need to know more details concerning the TRAINING IN LOVE OF ONE'S NEIGHBOUR 483 act of parturition ; a false notion in this field of knowledge entails the direst consequences.1 Girls should be told about the harmlessness of menstruation before the onset of this physiological process. Boys should be informed as to the significance of the semen and of seminal emissions before they have become disturbed by these phenomena. They should be warned against masturbation, without conjuring up the visage of the devil. High moral ideals, reverence for the purity of woman (who is after all sister to the mother), enthusiastic admiration for noble examples, struggle for the loftiest personal aims and for social welfare, love of sublime art, poetry, and science, and, above all, religion, constitute the most valuable deterrents. Friendship with persons of strong, moral character is likewise of inestimable worth. In order to guard against a vice, or to rid oneself of it when once acquired, we have to find a substitute of higher value to replace it. Sport cannot be accounted a thoroughly efficient prophylactic against sexual aberrations, for among sportsmen, as among military men, sexual debauchery is frequently met with-although it is far from being my intention to express any general censure of sport and its votaries. Many have found valuable outlets for the dangerous stirrings of their sensuous nature in walking tours, in mountaineering, and in swimming. But above all it is love which robs the sexual impulse of its unholy might, love of a girl, love of a staunch friend, love of God, or love of Jesus. Only love can banish into the abysses of the earth the evils attendant upon the sexual impulse. Enlightenment imparted by the teacher to his class can only be looked upon as a last resort in those unfortunate instances in which a 1 According to Foerster (Sexualethik und Sexualpadagogik, p. 201), Otto Ernst maintains that he has never met with a lovable child among those who have been sexually enlightened. This has certainly not been my experience. Everything depends upon the manner of the enlightenment. Well-instructed children talk far less often about these matters with their comrades than do ignorant or half-enlightened youngsters.-Foerster's optimistic view is that the seductions of the street can be best counteracted by a careful general education, by an intimate confidence between parents and children, and by cultivation of the sentiment of shame, rather than by a possibly premature sexual enlightenment (Foerster, op. cit., p. 204). But the case I have recorded on p. 442, which I can supplement by many similar ones, shows that this advice is very dangerous. If a child comes to notice that the life of sex is a domain concerning which it may ask no questions, or if it perceives that its questions on this topic are left unanswered, it conceals what it hears and sees in these matters. It will do this even though there exists plenty of mutual confidence in other respects. Hence the danger of Foerster's plan. 484 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS widespread psychical infection has occurred. One of the most reprehensible of acts is committed when without any effort at enlightenment, a child is expelled from a school because of some sexual misdemeanour on its part, and when the poor little culprit is left to whatever fate may befall it. Precisely such sinners, once cured, are of the greatest moral value to the class. io. Coeducation. It is certainly right and proper that boys and girls should be educated together. When boys know only the company of other boys, and girls only that of girls, healthy moral training becomes very difficult. Homosexuality is far commoner than is usually believed. Even in the best regulated boarding- schools such practices are only too common. I have known young men who have suffered terribly from the consequences of many years' " married relationships " (as they called it) with comrades at school who shared the same bedroom. On the other hand, evils arise in coeducational schools when proper control is not exercised. No general principle can be laid down for such cases. The greater the trust one can place in the young people, the more freedom may they be allowed. If the teacher permits a moral danger to assail the children under his charge, he himself is guilty if the young ones succumb. n. Education of the social Sentiment. When the training of the social sentiment in children is neglected, a great crime is committed. Pestalozzi and his disciple Natorp have written so much that is valuable con- cerning this subject, that I feel I need say little on the matter. The nursery and the schoolroom should be permeated with the spirit of Wilhelm von Humboldt's beautiful dictum : " It is our relationships with other human beings that really give our life its value." 12. Religion and the Education of the Will. Education to a genuine love which shall reach out beyond the love of self to comprise the whole of mankind, is best promoted through the inculcation of a noble, healthy, and there- fore free and unfettering, religion. The idea of the threefold division of love (for God, one's neighbour, and oneself), which TRAINING IN LOVE OF ONE'S NEIGHBOUR 485 t has been substantiated by the most recent psychological researches, dates from nearly two thousand years back. It is natural, then, that the supreme exemplars of love of one's neighbour should have been frequenters of the sacred grove of piety ; nor was it a chance matter that the founder of Christianity should have proclaimed the threefold division of love as a preexistent entity and a revealed doctrine. Here we see the radiance of a helpful, forgiving, and cleansing love spreading far beyond the limits of the family and of the nation to illumine the whole world, and, from the altitudes of philosophy, encompassing the universe. In this ideal con- ception we perceive how mighty is the plunge we have made and are making into the depths of psychology, philosophy, and teleology. Lacking this outlook-comprehending as it does all humanity, the whole of reality, and God himself- man would be a wandering cell detached from the organism, a blood-corpuscle whirled along through the vessels, ignorant of its own meaning and aim. Separated from the All and the One, man and the human species are groping in the darkness. Religion is a most bountiful source of energy, and as such it is essential to the culture of the will. To this I shall return in a subsequent work. The education of love and the education to love can only come to fruition through the mutual relationships of earthly and heavenly love. B THE TREATMENT OF ABNORMAL LOVE IN CHILDREN CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX DIAGNOSIS i. Its general Importance. A sound education is the best prophylactic against aberra- tions and love. We know, however, that, even if we take the greatest possible care, some of the determinants of aberrations are not in our hands ; and, indeed, that many of the gravest troubles may arise if we err on the side of over-sedulous care. Lass auch dein Kind in Gottes Hut Und denk', wie wohl ihm Freiheit tut 1 1 Rectificatory measures will, therefore, always be needed as a part of education. Not long ago I published a little book concerning the management of abnormal children and of such as are difficult to train.3 I propose here to summarise the contents of that work, and to elaborate it a little. The first essential for the rectification of an aberration of love is precise knowledge concerning its nature, its causes, and its position and significance in the mental life of the child with which we have to deal. We have already recognised that the same symptom may have a very different significance in different subjects. Theft, for instance, may be the expression of a general disposition ; it may arise from envy or malice, from avarice or vanity, or from some other moral defect. In such cases, the theft will be performed without a qualm, or ' Leave your child in God's guardianship, too, And remember how good freedom is for a child ! » Pfister, Die Behandlung schwer erziehbarer und abnormer Kinder. 486 DIAGNOSIS 487 as the outcome of cold calculation. Sometimes, however, it must be ascribed to an inward compulsion. It may then be preceded by terrible spiritual conflicts, so that we may infer that strong moral impulses are at work ; and it is likely to be followed by a mood of self-condemnation which arouses weariness of life. Here we have to do with a pathological compulsion, which may vary greatly in intensity, and may form part of any one among several symptom-complexes, such as hysteria, an obsessional neurosis, or dementia praecox. In this respect, aberrations of love are on the same footing as stammering, hallucinations, an irresistible impulse to laugh, and the like. They may be symptoms of a number of different diseases, and thus have very varying significance. Of course the treatment must vary accordingly. It would be folly, indeed it would be an educational crime, to deal with an unhappy kleptomaniac in the same way as a cold- blooded reprobate, as one with an irresistible impulse to lie, or as a self-satisfied cheat. Even the least intelligent of teachers should know that in grave cases these aberrations are manifestations of irresistible impulses. In some such instances, the subject will continue to feel that he really has the power of resisting his impulse, and yet the psychologist may recognise that this sense of freedom is quite illusory.1 It is needless to reopen the whole problem of free will. Our main task in such cases is to repair the moral and bio- logical damage. It is obvious that the want of clear insight into the nature of the lack of love may have the most disastrous consequences. The measures that would be helpful in the case of a normal pupil, may at times be most injurious for one that is diseased-just as food that is excellent for the healthy, may do grave harm to the sick. No doubt we may do well when we impressively harangue an ordinary thief, when we show him how despicable his conduct is, and when we punish the offender. But if we should treat in the same fashion an unhappy kleptomaniac who overwhelms himself with reproaches and is driven to the verge of suicide by self-contempt, we shall only multiply his distresses without in any way increasing his power of making headway against his impulses. Again, do we not show our own folly if we try by punishment to reform a boy who torments animals because his antipathy to his father 1 Cf. Pfister, Die Willensfreiheit, pp. 153 et seq 488 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS has been transferred to these animals, and because he gratifies his sadistic desires by maltreating them ? Even a simpleton should not fail to recognise that such a method will serve only to fortify the evil impulses. We owe a debt of gratitude to Herbart for his excellent description of the faults of pupils and of their treatment.1 Yet he writes : " Lascivious sensuality and hot temper tend to grow worse as the years pass. To counteract them, there must be strict supervision, grave censure, and all the severity of moral principles." We have to remember that the strictest supervision may be futile against the outbreaks of fierce passion ; that the gravest censure may be a trifle in comparison with the crushing weight of self-reproach; and that the severest principles will, in many unfortunates, only strengthen the feeling, " I am a miserable wretch, a reprobate and a weakling, unworthy to see the light of day ! " With the best will in the world, we shall often commit a grave pedagogical error and shall display inhuman cruelty if we attempt to guide ourselves by Herbart's systematism. Thus punitive measures which may be appropriate in one case, will completely fail in another, and without an accurate diagnosis we shall lose our way in the fog. How preposterous it is to lecture a boy upon the immorality of his actions, when the offender has time and again repeated these platitudes to himself. It is heartless to be satisfied with setting a good example to one who is only too eager to follow it, but who lacks the power, and in whom a poignant sense of inferiority is aroused precisely because he cannot follow the good example. How futile to offer rewards for good conduct to those whose antisocial behaviour brings them far more pleasure than they could derive from our rewards. What is the use of talking about the delight of a good conscience to children to whom the phrase is quite unmeaning ? Appeals to sympathy, touching exhortations, are of no avail in the case of pupils who long to be guided by their social impulses, but in whom insuperable inhibitions are at work. A. teacher who practices psychoanalysis learns that many persons have their aberrations aggravated by educational 2. The Failure of contemporary Pedagogy. 1 Herbart, Umriss pSdagogischer Vorlesungen, Part iii, § 2 DIAGNOSIS 489 measures applied by well-meaning advisers who are guided by the traditional rules of educational science. This artificial fostering of morbid troubles in children is a terrible blot upon the dominant system of pedagogy. That system clings to its musty principles, applying them in all directions and with an air of self-importance, but without any understanding of the real spiritual needs of the young. I can vouch for the assertion that quite a number of those who compile educational treatises have never educated even one child. They are diligent students of the literature of the subject, and what is novel in their ingenious speculations may secure the approval of their brethren in the craft, but it is valueless in our struggle with the aberrations of the youthful mind. Our pedagogy offers us excellent ethical plans, and as far as concerns the methods of imparting knowledge it has made considerable advances. But as concerns educational science in the wider sense of the term, it is grossly defective. The reason is that it is based upon the old psychology, which ignored the activities of the unconscious mind. A teacher who is incompetent to make an accurate diagnosis of the nature of a mental aberration, is a quack and a bungler. When pedagogues of the old school declare that all but an infinitesimal minority of pupils can be understood and managed by persons without specialist knowledge, they are utterly mistaken. In every class there is a notable proportion -it may amount to one fifth or even more-of scholars affected with grave troubles thanks to crampings of development. Yet we know that such neurotics are often persons of exceptional talent and refinement, persons with a capacity for the highest creative work. Their teachers are, in general, quite ignorant how to deal with them. At training colleges for teachers, no opportunity for the study of mental defects in children is given to the students, and few indeed are the professors of pedagogy who know anything about these important matters. A dog-fancier has to know something about the illnesses of puppies. Every peasant who has to do with calves and pig- lings, learns at least so much concerning the commoner diseases of these young animals as to enable him to cope with their minor ailments. But teachers, even certificated teachers, are apt to behave in a way which suggests that they think the minds of children less worthy of attention than the bodies of 490 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS puppies, calves, and piglings. They stuff their own heads with an abundance of information ; but as concerns the mental activities of children, they ignore the life of feeling and will, which is more important than the life of the intellect; and they do not study the morbid aberrations of the youthful mind at all. Need it surprise us that such teachers, though many of them are animated with the best intentions in the world, should work havoc among their pupils ? Among the errors of education, those that are committed in the home training of children bulk very largely. Even the fathers and mothers who take a serious view of their responsi- bilities, and who are ready to seek expert advice when occasion arises, find that the advice is not forthcoming when abnor- malities of development are in question. As far as normal education is concerned, there is an abundance of classical treatises. Such authorities as Comenius and Pestalozzi are among the great benefactors of mankind, and I fully recognise that many of the pioneers of educational science remain inexhaustible sources of wisdom.1 But as far as the treatment of abnormal children is concerned, even these great ones had no help to offer, and they lacked insight into the most serious dangers that threaten mental growth. There is urgent need that the recent advances in educational science should become known to the generality of people. But even among pro- fessional teachers there is still an almost incredible reluctance to face the facts of modern research. They continue to reiterate the ancient and sterile concepts, and to ignore the new lights. Paul Haberlin was the first among professors of educational science to break the spell. Thanks to his psycho- analytical training he has displayed a pedagogical understanding of the abnormalities no less than the normalities of mental life-and every one of us has some such abnormalities ! Especially ill-equipped in these respects are the institutions for the care of abnormal children and of those difficult to educate. When people do not know what else to do with youthful kleptomaniacs, runaways, idlers, hooligans, and 1 The seventeenth-century Moravian bishop (Comenius) must still be reckoned among modern thinkers. We find in his writings admirable discussions of many of the problems which with us are questions of the moment, such as the eight-hour day, the study of women, and the problem of the circumscribed unity of all branches of knowledge-a problem to which Ragaz has so recently and so vigorously directed our attention. DIAGNOSIS 491 sexual offenders, they pen these unfortunates in an institution in the company of a miscellaneous assortment of similar children. What should we think of a hospital ward in which the sufferers from all kinds of skin disease were herded together -cases of black smallpox, scabies, syphilitic dermatitis, herpes, eczema, pemphigus, scarlatina, leprosy, measles, erysipelas, etc. A doctor who did such a thing would be regarded as a lunatic, and would be held responsible if infection spread from one patient to another. But what better do we do when we impound in a reformatory a random collection of children affected with aberrations ? Neurotics with excellent moral aspirations and suffering intensely because of their criminal impulses, are dumped down beside moral imbeciles who commit the greatest crimes without an atom of compunction ; well-disposed youths afflicted with infirmity of will and incompetent to resist unwholesome solicitations, are associated with the hardened ringleaders of hooligan gangs ; the innocent victims of evil communications who urgently need affectionate aid, rub shoulders with the hopelessly depraved ; those in danger of sexual corruption become the bedfellows of incurable perverts. Need we wonder that the results of reformatory treatment are so disastrous, when there is such a scandalous jumbling up of incompatible types, and when moral infection is positively cultivated ? 3. The Making of the Diagnosis. A favourite remark is : " No one can understand a child so well as its parents." It would be impossible to make a greater mistake ! The average parent has neither the requisite impartiality nor the indispensable psychological knowledge. The general tendency of parents is to take too favourable a view of their own children. If their little boy is caught red-handed, they are confident that he must have been led astray. Somebody else's child must have been the guilty party. Even the most dangerous ringleader of a gang of hooligans is an innocent lamb led into evil courses by his comrades. In other cases, though less often, parents will make out their child to be worse than it is. Had they understood the child better, matters might not have come to their present pass. When abnormal difficulties in education arise, parents are 492 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS at a rule ready enough to turn for help to teachers and the clergy. But we have seen that few teachers and few clergymen have the knowledge requisite for coping with such difficulties. Although teachers are permanently in contact with children, this does not compensate for the lack of scientific insight. Even doctors have seldom had the theoretical and practical experience which would enable them to deal with such cases. How can teachers and clergymen minister to a mind diseased when they have not been through the necessary training ? The educational science they have studied relates only to the healthy child, to what is called " a normal human being "- and this (God be praised !) is a non-existent entity.1 With all due respect for the educational instinct, which is indis- pensable but only acquires its full value in virtue of thorough training, this stereotyped pedagogy does not suffice. It is eminently desirable that at all our universities and training colleges for teachers sound instruction should be given con- concerning the mental aberrations of childhood. Moreover, since only a lesser moiety of these abnomalities can be regarded as morbid, one who would teach those affected with them must have studied psychiatry. Or perhaps a professional educa- tionist and a psychiatrist should join forces in this work. Just as in difficult cases even the most skilful of general practitioners must call in the aid of a specialist, so there should be educational specialists, who can be consulted when the knowledge and competence of the teacher or the clergyman (who are apt to be overburdened with routine work) are at fault. But let me hasten to say that there are numerous cases, simple and nevertheless important, which any well-informed teacher should be perfectly competent to deal with. Besides seeking the advice of the educational consultant, we shall often have to turn to the alienist, for it is obvious that children suffering from well-marked mental disorder come within his province. But this alienist must have had special training in educational science, for the proper treatment of a mentally abnormal child is an educational problem. We greatly overestimate medical ability if we assume that a know- ledge of psychopathology and psychiatry suffices to make a doctor competent to deal with grave educational difficulties. 1 Cf. Pfister, Die Behandlung schwar erziehbarer und abnormar Kinder, pp. 14 at saq. DIAGNOSIS 493 The alienist, therefore, will be glad to work hand in hand with the educational specialist. The two will cooperate in the endeavour to promote the welfare of the pupil, though, of course, in one case there will be more demand for the services of the doctor and in another for those of the pedagogue. It would redound to the advantage of children, and therefore to that of the community-at-large, if consultation clinics, and where need arises sanatoria, were generally available in such cases. An important field of activity is open here for the State and for private philanthropists. As a rule, a diagnosis can be made at the first sitting. Sometimes, however, the child will have to be kept under observation for many weeks. 4. Classification of the Abnormalities of Love in Children. We are not here concerned with the classification of these aberrations from the practical point of view. Only the con- ceptual distinctions come within the scope of this work. To that end we may avail ourselves of the general schemata that have already been adumbrated. In Chapter Nineteen we dis- tinguished between the processes that were and those that were not attended with repression. In actual fact, however, the two kinds of processes are interrelated. Neurotic inheritance may coincide with congenital moral debility, or it may be associated with exposure to bad environmental influences. But this conceptual classification is, as I shall hope to show, quite applicable to the explanation of the various methods of treatment. Each of the two main groups contains numerous sub- divisions of which a detailed description cannot be given here. Among the aberrants without repression we may include the moral imbeciles whose sensory equipment is grossly inadequate, also the victims of parental errors of education, the products of seduction, and so on ; in almost all such cases, the causation is multiple. The cases in which there is repression include those who are suffering from moral aberration but who are not ill in the medical sense of the term ; also the neurotics (persons suffering from hysteria or from obsessional neurosis) ; also psychopaths, lunatics, etc. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN THE TREATMENT OF THOSE ABNOMALITIES IN WHICH THERE IS BUT LITTLE REPRESSION i. Attention to bodily Defects. Even in the case of children that are not ordinarily classed as neurotic, in the case of difficult and refractory pupils, the teacher must give careful attention to their bodily condition. Various organic troubles, such as anaemia, kidney disease, or sexual anomalies, may arouse unfavourable moods and have an extremely disadvantageous influence upon the development of the love sentiment. Adults, likewise, are apt to become unamiable when they are out of sorts. One of the most memorable experiences of my own childhood was of an occasion when our nursery governess was extremely unjust to a little boy of four. He had been indolent for several days, inattentive at lessons, and finally he fell asleep during lesson- time. The governess, who was rather hot-tempered, awoke him roughly and slapped him. Thereupon he vomited all over her dress, and this made her realise at length that she had been taking quite a wrong view of his condition. A week later we were attending the child's funeral, the irritable governess standing among us in deep contrition, while some of the others present at the ceremony were thinking indig- nantly of the slapping that had been administered to the boy sickening of meningitis. Subsequently, I had plenty of opportunities of noticing how unobservant teachers would try to dragoon pupils whose apparent laziness was due to bodily disorder. In view of such facts, the movement to devote more attention to school hygiene deserves the fullest support. If we have to do with children whose home surroundings are characterised by a lack of affectionate care, we shall find that the sense that they are unjustly treated has a very bad 494 TREATMENT OF ABNORMALITIES 495 influence upon them. On the other hand, a child is delighted to feel that due attention is being paid to its physical well- being. When the mental or moral troubles associated writh physical disorder are of a minor character, attention to the physique, and especially a suitable change of air, will often be as good for the mind as for the body. But in graver cases of mental or moral disorder, such physical remedies may do more harm than good. 2. Educational Measures necessitated by a defective moral Inheritance. In the first section of Chapter Twenty we considered the general significance of heredity. Many defects which were formerly regarded as congenital, and were consequently looked upon as irremediable, have been shown by psychoanalytical research to be acquired, and therefore amenable to treatment. But of course no one proposes to deny the overwhelming importance of heredity. The nature of the inborn constitution is of primary significance in determining the effects of educa- tional influences. This is especially true as regards the appraisement and the management of congenital characters that are unfavourable from the moral point of view. But let us be clear as to the meaning of the terms we are using. Stekel speaks of " inborn criminal tendencies." I do not hesitate to say that I have never encountered anything of the kind. " Criminality " is a sociological concept, and its significance varies according to the stage of civilisation. The behaviour which the civilised human being regards as criminal, may seem virtuous to the savage. No impulse is evil or good per se. In the voluntary decisions and voluntary actions which we adjudge good, there are impulsive elements of the same nature as those contained in the most undesirable actions. Conversely, every bad action is animated by an impulsive energy which might have been turned to good account. Evil is only done when the elemental energy which is proper to a lower stage of existence overpowers the morally superior conation. From the evolutionary stand- point we may say that evil is wrought by the failure to achieve the sublimation which the moral law demands. These considerations enable us to form a definite idea of what we mean when we speak of an inferior moral heredity, 496 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS and of a love faculty that is morally inadequate. What is amiss is that the capacity for sublimation is insufficient. An environment in which one child will develop in a way that is morally healthy, will arouse in another child no gratitude, no sympathy, no stirrings of conscience, no affectionate impulse towards social helpfulness. Although there have been no errors of education, although there has been no lack of the educational influences which in the case of other children would have promoted satisfactory moral development, we find that the moral responses are absent or abnormal. It must be admitted that such types are rare ; and that when we encounter children that seem to be suffering from the effects of a bad moral inheritance we shall generally find, on closer examination, that unwholesome environmental influences have been at work. But it is none the less true that there is such a thing as a bad moral inheritance. Every one who has been in charge of an orphan asylum, and has had the opportunity of watching a large number of children from the very earliest days of life, will confirm this statement. But the reader must carefully avoid drawing false con- clusions from this admission. Lombroso has done a great deal of harm with his doctrine of the " born criminal." It is not true that there are persons whom an inexorable destiny forces into criminal paths, persons for whom the most careful and loving education is of no avail. Nor is it true that such individuals, who are supposed to be characterised by bodily stigmata, can best be treated as brute beasts. On the contrary, persons afflicted with congenital defects demand from us the utmost care and attention. What has previously been said regarding the conjuncture of love with moral earnestness, is especially applicable to these unfortunate beings. By exceptional watchfulness, we must restrict the opportunities for moral lapses; and only by degrees and with extreme care should we enlarge the opportunities for free initiative. If any kind of punishment is thought expedient, it must never be such as will embitter the recipient, but only such as will give expression to the kindliness of the teacher. Affectionate and intimate talks are especially desirable. There must be a due measure of trust in the pupil, for the teacher who cannot repose trust is lost. In reformatories, likewise, the inmates must be given a chance of winning the confidence TREATMENT OF ABNORMALITIES 497 of those in authority. But such freedom as is given must not conflict with the observance of the prayer, " Lead us not into temptation." If the parents are not equal to the task, and if no suitable foster family is forthcoming, institutional treatment is the only resource. But here a twofold danger must be avoided. We must see to it that the afflicted pupil shall not be made worse by contact with others whose troubles may be even graver than his own, and we must see to it that he himself does not infect others. He must have no chance of either learning or teaching bad behaviour. Hence, a careful classi- fication of the cases is essential. Furthermore, a gloomy prison atmosphere must be avoided. The whole institution must be flooded with the sunshine of forgiveness, with delight in every good resolution, with help- fulness towards a life leading upwards to true freedom. By a sound education, even those with defective moral inheritance may be fitted for a satisfactory existence. But the teacher must not forget what Karl Hagenbeck once taught an astonished world-that even beasts of prey need to be lovingly trained if the educational influences of their environment are to do the maximum of good. 3. How TO OVERCOME THE ERRORS OF DEVELOPMENT THAT ARE MAINLY DUE TO ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCES. The environment in which the love sentiment of one child may thrive may be disastrous to that of another. If we find that a child is not thriving in its environment, we must either modify the influences to which it is exposed, or else we must transfer it to a new environment. Modification of the educational influences without re- moving the child, will sometimes prove fruitful. Simple instruction may at times suffice. In the case of a melancholy girl, whose eyes were weak, and whose habit it was to creep under the table for supper and there dolorously contemplate the legs of her table-companions, a single conversation with the father made him realise the greatness of the danger and how it must be averted. Henceforward he treated the girl tenderly and considerately, and even lovingly, took her with him on journeys, and helped her to change her former outlook, so that at sixteen she soon became normal and was a joy to her parents. 498 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS If the educator can bring about that there shall be a quiet and frank exchange of ideas between parents and child, much will often be gained, especially if both parties have been care- fully prepared for this conversation. Many misunderstandings will be cleared up, many false fears will be removed, and on both sides the longing for love and mutual understanding will have the most beneficial results. Often it will suffice, when a father has despised his child, to draw his attention to the latter's merits, or to remind him how much help a child can be to its parents if it is brought up lovingly and kindly. We may explain the evils of a harsh and over-disciplinary education ; may point out the evil consequences of disputes between the parents in the presence of a child ; or may refer to the disastrous results of having the child's bed in an unsuit- able place. In other cases we may advise that the child should have a little pocket-money, or should be given opportunities for harmless and elevating pleasures. When all such means are unavailing, our only resource is to remove the child to a new environment. Even when the parting is felt to be painful, it will prove the kindest thing in the end. Generally speaking, however, the most important measure is to bring influences directly to bear upon the child. We must delve deeper and ever deeper into its mind, in order to understand what motives are at work. Let us suppose that we have to do with a little girl who has a habit of pilfering. Nothing could be more mistaken than to have recourse to a graduated scale of punishments. Our business is to find out what the child wants to gain by the thefts. Does she steal to appease hunger, or to satisfy a craving for sweets, or to flaunt with stolen finery, or to bestow the produce of the theft on others, or to pay some one out ? When we have ascertained the leading motive (behind which numerous subsidiary motives will always lurk), we must quietly and circumstantially form our plans. We must convince the girl of the futility and folly of her ways ; must make her realise that her desires can only be gratified satisfactorily by another, a permissible way; and we must show her that the advantages thus secured will be far finer and more delightful than those contemplated when the offence was committed. TREATMENT OF ABNORMALITIES 499 In his story, Netoshka. Nesvanova, Dostoevski gives an admirable description of this form of enlightenment, which is supremely important because it is enlightenment concerning oneself, one's own will, and one's own true advantage. Never, perhaps, has an ideal governess been so charmingly portrayed as in this masterpiece of the great Russian writer. Dostoevski describes how her soul radiated sunshine. " But in happy and tranquil hours, her glance, which penetrated so deep into the heart, conveyed so much clearness and cordiality, so much quiet purity. Her blue eyes seemed so tender and so sweet. She was such a mirror of sympathy with all that was noble and good, with all that was craving for love or compassion, that one gave up one's whole soul to her, submitted oneself to her utterly, and felt that one was receiving from her the same illumination and reconciliation and love. This is how, at times, one looks up into the blue sky, feeling that one could spend hours and hours in this sweet contemplation, and that one's spirit grows freer and calmer as if it were being reflected in the empyrean as the great dome of heaven is reflected in a tranquil mere. But when, as often happened, her face was coloured with the fires of enthusiasm and her breast rose and fell with animation, her eyes glowed darkly as if her soul, which chastely cherished the pure flame of the beautiful to which she devoted herself with so much enthusiasm, were looking out at one from her starry orbs. Then, indeed, she was filled with the holy spirit. And in this sudden uprush of the soul, this change from a quiescent mood to one of ardent enthusiasm, there was such a wealth of naive and childlike faith that a painter would have given half his life for the sight of this woman's face at such a moment and for the power to portray her enthusiasm on canvas." A brilliant anticipation of psychoanalysis, or at least of some of its most valuable principles, is found in the following description of the methods of instruction and education employed by this woman. " My new teacher was definitely opposed to all systematisation. She insisted that after various trials we should discover the right road, and that there was no reason why I should stuff my head with dead rules. Success would depend upon the discovery of my natural talents and upon the ability to set my own will to work. She must have been right, for her method was crowned with success. We 500 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS learned together like two friends, and sometimes it turned out that I was teaching Aleksandra Mihailovna without my having noticed her little artifice. Sometimes we would even fall into a dispute, and I would zealously endeavour to put the matter before her from my point of view, until at length, quite incon- spicuously, she would guide me into the right path. In the end, a light would usually break in on me of a sudden. I would recognise what her stratagem had been, and would perceive that she had been devoting whole hours to my benefit. When this happened, I would throw my arms round her neck in a convulsive embrace." Even more important is the following account of Alek- sandra's educational methods. " She began to ask me about my earlier life, and when I had told her she became ever more tender towards me, and graver too because the sadness of my childhood's days inspired her with a certain respect as well as sympathy. After my revelations, we used to talk matters over, and she would try to explain my experiences to me, so that it seemed to me as if I were living them all over again and learning much in the process. . . . After such instruction I used to feel so light of heart and so free of spirit, as if there had been nothing obscure and tragical in my destiny. I had, too, much reason to be grateful to Aleksandra Mihailovna simply because she made me love her more tenderly day by day. Madame Leotard [a governess of the old school] had of course never realised that in this way all my troubles would by degrees be smoothed out and ordered, that harmony would be restored where previously storm and confusion of spirit had prevailed. Heretofore, my youthful heart had endured its wounds and its sufferings unavailingly; it had been stagnant, for it had merely been aware of the smart, without understanding whence and wherefore the blows came." Here we see how a woman of fine nature, herself trained in the school of suffering, was able to do instinctively that which psychoanalysis has learned to recommend for children that are ailing and for healthy children that have been gravely affected by outward impressions. The child has to talk over its past troubles, and in conversation with a beloved and respected elder has to adopt an intelligent attitude towards its owTn past experiences. Even when there has been no thrusting down into the unconscious, such a coming to terms TREATMENT OF ABNORMALITIES 501 with the past is the best way of securing deliverance from the past's unwholesome consequences. When an aberration of the kind previously described has ensued, such a conversation is essential. But the elder must be a good and pure-minded person, whose love makes it easy for the child to pour out its heart. Thanks to such a talk, undertaken in the right spirit and wisely carried out, a most intimate relationship arises between pupil and teacher. But the latter must be on guard lest new and dangerous fixations of the love sentiment should ensue. This may happen all the more readily inasmuch as the distressing experiences that are being discussed may be projected upon the teacher. That is spoken of as negative transference. Furthermore, the relation- ship between pupil and teacher must not assume any other sort of undesirable complexion. The pupil must not fall in love with the teacher or enter into a relationship of childish dependence. There must be an honourable friendship between pupil and teacher, a relationship which does not involve any impairment of the pupil's free self-determination or of the latter's power to bestow an affection which shall be in accor- dance with the dictates of conscience and reason and shall be a spur to the highest moral activities. The regulation of these sentiments is often a difficult task, and demands from the teacher the possession of sound psychoanalytical knowledge even when the pupil has been little troubled by repressions. For aberrant pupils, the teacher must build a bridge back to normal human morality. As the representative of the moral law and of a society that is fundamentally accordant with the moral law, he will hold out towards the offender forgiving and helping hands and will lead the wanderer back into the right path. He thus becomes the mediator, the guide across the chasm which separates evil from good. In his person is embodied the victory of love over the powers of darkness. He represents the gratia ftraeveniens, the intercessionary grace, which Goethe, at the close of Faust, with fine psychological insight and profound religious knowledge, discloses to the struggling hero as the indispensable means of salvation. It is easy to see that this notion of saving grace is identical with the central thought of Christianity. When the bridge has been built, doctrine becomes experience. Without the affective rapport, it is dead. Nor 502 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS must the teaching offered to the strayed child be anywise abstract in form. It must consist of views that shall not be conveyed in didactic fashion, and they must on no account be predominantly intellectualist in character. What the teacher has to aim at is that the child shall acquire a new attitude towards itself, mankind, God, life, and the universe ; a new attitude of thought, feeling, and will; a new love. A new self-love is essential, accompanied by a revised estimate of the self, an estimate that shall fulfil the profoundest need of every child's mind. Consequently it behoves the teacher to convince the child of three things, not as mere formulas but as something demonstrable in actual life : You are worth something ; you count for something ; you can do something-provided always that your love sentiment, and therewith your whole life, are rightly directed. 1. "You are worth something! " The aberrant child always suffers from a lurking sense of worthlessness, even when pride flaunts its banners and seems to fill the conscious. One of the most potent motives to crime is the thought: " I am a worthless wretch, and nothing that I do can make me any worse." The greatest of the physicians of the soul has therefore conveyed to all outcasts the consciousness that they can never forfeit their position as the children of God. It is in his spirit that we must preach courage to the fallen, and must inspire them with confidence in so far as confidence is justified by psychological insight. 2. " You count for something ! " In Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre, Goethe writes : " If we merely take men as they are, we make them worse ; but if we treat them as they ought to be we bring them whither they ought to be brought." We must show to the aberrant that we do not regard him as a hopeless outcast; we must convince him, on the contrary, that we count upon his mending his ways, that we count upon the victory of his better self. We must make it easy for him to be reaccepted into the community of love. 3. "You can do something ! " The aberrant must be made to realise that he is empowered to become an efficient human being and that he is foolishly wasting his opportunities should he fail to mend his ways. In many cases we find that the offender is proud of his misdeeds, and actually congratulates himself because others are grieved by his conduct. It will be TREATMENT OF ABNORMALITIES 503 best in such cases to play upon the weakness by showing the lost child that it cannot get even with its detested parents in the desired way, for they will simply cast it off when its cup of iniquity is full, and it will therefore punish no one but itself. With this powerlessness for evil we must contrast the power for good that even the prodigal possesses, the power to lead a beautiful and happy life, to win back a respected position, if only he break with vice. Further, we must help the aberrant to new loving relation- ships with his fellows. Disorders of the love sentiment are, as we have seen, among the main causes of aberrations. There are three points which we must bring home to the mind of one who believes himself to have been disinherited of love. 1. "You will be loved as soon as you show a genuine endeavour towards improvement." Perhaps a better way of putting it would be : " Love has never been withheld from you, but you give it no opportunity for showing itself as long as you persist in evil courses." 2. "You will be able to love and to rejoice in your love as soon as you have the good will to turn aside from wrong- doing." 3. "You can work for and do good service to one who loves you and whom you love in return." In addition, for those whose outlook is a religious one, we may refer to God's love, holiness, and grace ; to the way in which Jesus brings salvation to the lost; and to the blessings and the joys of rebirth to a life of purity, freedom, dutifulness, and boundless love. But these views are not to be inculcated doctrinally ; they are to be conveyed incidentally at appropriate moments. Only those from whom love irradiates will succeed in thawing the ice with which embittered minds are encrusted. If the radiance of love finds its way into the darkness of sorrow which pervades an aberrant and loveless existence, strong motives will be provided for an entry into better courses-especially when, in the way previously explained, the past has been rendered intelligible by a loving illumination. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT THE TREATMENT OF ABNORMALITIES DUE TO REPRESSION What has been said regarding the abnormalities that are not ascribable to repression applies also to those due to repression, in so far as there is no opportunity for the application of special methods. In part, too, the former mechods must be used to supplement the special methods now to be considered. Let us avoid the mistake of thinking that the educator can work along one line only. The mind of the child is an infinitely subtle and complicated living entity, and we must not despise the aid of any honourable ally in the campaign on behalf of its deliverance and happiness. In addition to the methods mentioned in the last chapter, two are mainly applicable to deal with crampings of impulse. These are suggestion and psychoanalysis. Their relation to one another resembles that between the Old Testament and the New ; between the dictatorial, burden-imposing " thou shalt," and the liberating, joy-bringing " thou mayst " ; like that between law and grace ; between the cutting and the untying of a knot; between the crack of a whip and an encouraging sound. By suggestion in the narrower sense of the term we under- stand the communication of an idea strongly tinged with affect, the communication being either made authoritatively by another person (heterosuggestion), or made vigorously to the subject by himself (autosuggestion). According to Wundt, suggestion must be made when the subject is in a state of hypnosis.1 This limitation is needless, for suggestion can be made to persons in the waking state. 1. Suggestion. 1 Wundt. Grundriss der Psychologic, ist edition, p. 321 504 TREATMENT OF ABNORMALITIES 505 Hypnotic suggestion and suggestion in the waking state have both been extensively used for educational and curative purposes during recent decades, at first with extravagant expectations, but of late with more modest hopes. Hypnotism is still employed in the treatment of persons whose waking desires are counteracted by unconscious will, as for instance in stammerers, kleptomaniacs, persons suffering from nocturnal incontinence, etc. But the expectations raised by this method have by no means been fulfilled, its successes having been more and more plainly disclosed to be scanty and untrust- worthy. No one will deny that considerable good may occasionally be done, but the cure is seldom permanent. Moreover, many children cannot be hypnotised. It is further alleged that by hypnotism the child's will is blindly subordinated to an alien will, whereas efficient education must aim at cultivating the individual's own will. My personal experience does not enable me to give a definite opinion as to how far the use of hypnotism may undermine the inde- pendence of the will in domains outside that in which the will of the suggester is definitely used to influence the will of the subject. But another defect of the suggestive method seems to me far more serious, and it is attendant on the use of suggestion in the waking state no less than on that of hypnotic suggestion. I refer to the risk of confounding this or that undesirable symptom with the root of the mischief. It is not considered good surgical practice to plaster over the surface of an ulcer when the morbid process is allowed to go on working under- neath. The free discharge of the diseased products lessens the danger of autointoxication. In like manner we know that neurotic symptoms are a sort of safety-valve through which cramped impulses make their way to the surface. What do we gain by closing one ulcer if two others break out elsewhere ? What do we gain if we succeed in forcibly repressing a neurotic symptom when the cramping of impulse persists, to manifest itself, as often happens, by new symptoms of a similar nature ; or to manifest itself, as I have myself seen, in symptoms of moral disorder which seem to be outside the domain of the physician's art but threaten the whole wellbeing of the child ? When we survey the various reasons for considering the hypnotic method untrustworthy-its comparatively slight 506 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS power to cure, and the fugitive character of most of the cures which it does effect; the narrow limits of its applicability ; its complete failure to touch the cramping of impulse which is the real cause of disorder; and the danger that it may induce grave accessory results-we shall hardly be inclined to join Dubois and Bleuler in accounting hypnotic suggestion as chief among the methods of " mental orthopaedics." Suggestion in the waking state is more valuable. Indeed, its use can never be wholly excluded. The very thought of the educator or of any other person in authority (however little authoritative his demeanour) arouses suggestions in the subject. His house, his aspect, his glance, may all exercise a suggestive influence. We have learned that the unconscious, with the aid of regression, transference, condensation, etc., weaves vigorous suggestions, which may be either positive or negative. Of course these involuntary suggestions may work either for good or for ill. But to number such influences among suggestions is to use the term in the widest possible sense. Ordinarily when people speak of suggestion they are thinking of the deliberate incul- cation of certain views or resolves. Paul Dubois, in especial, has developed this method for medical and educational pur- poses, making use of a technique of persuasion which is primarily addressed to the healthy understanding of the patient.1 The procedure is based upon the cardinal proposition: " The nervous patient is on the road towards cure as soon as he is convinced that he is curable ; he is to be considered cured as soon as he regards himself as cured " (p. 202). Consequently, we have to aim at arousing this conviction ; and we must do so as far as possible by a clear exposition of reasons (p. 218). " When we have to do with a nervous patient, we must at one blow win the mastery over the patient, and must formally cultivate in him the fixed idea that he will be cured " (p. 223). " What we then have to do is to provide him with sound maxims of medical philosophy " (p. 224). Dubois would seem to address himself wholly to the reason, and among all the physicians who aim at curing by psycho- logical methods he is, in fact, the extreme intellectualist. And yet, thanks to the vigour of his personality, in actual practice he cannot help transcending the limits of his own doctrine. ' Dubois, Die Psychoneurosen und ihre psychische Behandlung, p. 214. TREATMENT OF ABNORMALITIES 507 In many ways he approximates to views which we should describe as psychoanalytical. He allows his patients to go on talking quietly. Should they become garrulous (p. 232), he asks them about their early childhood (p. 233) ; but he does not proceed to use the information thus acquired in the way that Freud has shewn to be curative. But Dubois presents himself to the patient as a friend. " We practitioners must display towards our patient a sym- pathy that is so lively, I might even say so enthralling, that he would be positively ungrateful not to allow himself to be cured " (p. 217). Thus the doctor discloses himself to the patient as a marvellous benefactor (p. 235). We see that Dubois has realised, instinctively at least, the important part love must play in curing the neuroses. As far as his theoretical dis- quisitions are concerned, this realisation is not apparent, for it is quite possible to arouse the strongest conviction of curability and of being cured without communicating a spark of love. This method, likewise-a method which is often successful in slight cases-pays no attention to the causes of the disease. But we do wrong to remove a symptom without freeing the patient from inward complications and distresses. We deprive him of the blessing which a more thorough cure might bring, a blessing we ought to confer on him. I must also point out that Dubois' method of persuasion is far less effective in dealing with moral defects than with nervous symptoms. The gravest objection, however, is this. We may be con- fronted with a person who is actually in chains, with one whose utmost endeavours cannot enable him to master his defects. For weeks or for months we are to declare to this person : "You can abandon your evil courses should you seriously will to do so." Or we are to say : " You have merely to continue thinking you are well, and then you will be well." But the kleptomaniac and the sufferer from some other form of irresistible impulse have again and again believed themselves freed from the burden of their vice, only to be convinced once more of their inability to overcome their impulses. In such cases, the injunction to believe in a non-existent health is absurd and cruel. It is simply untrue to say that the patient is well when he believes himself to be well. I have elsewhere 508 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS described a case in which a patient was telephoning joyfully that she had at length been freed from her symptoms. As she was actually saying this, a distressing hallucination showed her that her belief in cure was illusory.1 Conversely, a patient may believe that his illness persists when in reality he has been cured. I am sorry, therefore, both for doctors and patients who continue to cheat themselves with the assurance that health has been restored when both really know the state- ment to be untrue. This monotonous attempt at persuasion must involve increasing distress for both, seeing that in difficult cases no cure can thus be achieved. Besides, when Dubois does effect cures, the curative factor is not suggestion as a rule. The love sentiment has undergone a transformation ; love, hitherto stagnant and pent-up, has been provided with an outlet into the world of reality. Psychoanalysis enables us to understand what has taken place, whereas Dubois can merely record an incomprehensible fact. Despite these reserves, I am far from wishing to deny that educational suggestion has its uses even in cases where repression has been at work. Indeed, I recommend suggestion in certain instances. First of all, suggestion is applicable when the child has not sufficient intelligence for the use of the psychoanalytic method. Suggestion should also be used when outward circumstances make an analysis impossible, either for lack of time and means or because no analyst is forthcoming. Secondly, the use of suggestion may likewise be recom- mended when this simple method will suffice to direct the aberrant love sentiment into normal channels. We must agree that even formidable symptoms, such as long-standing con- tractures and spasmodic affections, and an incapacity to stand and to walk dating from years back, can be relieved by suggestion. Why should we not employ so simple a measure when it is available and when its results are satisfactory ? But we have to remember that the duration of a trouble and the distress it occasions afford no certain evidence as to its obstinacy and its moral significance. Further, I must repeat that we must not put too much confidence in the durability of the results thus secured. Failures are common, and so are relapses to a state even worse than before. ' Pfister, Ein neuer Zugang zum alten Evangelium, pp. 69 and 71. TREATMENT OF ABNORMALITIES 509 Nor must we forget that we may do harm by making suggestions to which facts give the lie. To a neurotic suffering from powerful inhibitions, the assertion, "You can and there- fore you must," will seem utterly unreasonable. If we tell one affected with an irresistible impulse to lie that he will be perfectly able to tell the truth if he only pulls himself together and devotes all his will power to the task, he will interpret his subsequent failure as an indication of a terrible loss of will power and moral grip. His discouragement will find expression in such phrases as : "I am utterly infirm of will. My efforts lead nowhere. I lack the powers of resolution possessed by others, and am therefore contemptible. Despite all I can do, my moral impulses are futile. I am, therefore, immoral, an abandoned wretch, a bankrupt creature." Suggestion, therefore, is by no means harmless ; it is often dangerous, and may be extremely injurious. I have known many persons who have become affected with weariness of life, have acquired suicidal impulses, or have been reduced to despair, owing to the use of suggestion by a psychologist whose knowledge was at fault. The same remarks apply to indirect suggestion in the form of moral exhortations, rewards, punishments, the advice to follow good examples, etc., etc. Educators of a conservative disposition pride themselves on clinging to such " well-tried " methods, and upon their " cautious " rejection of the newer methods. We must most emphatically assure them that the old methods are often extremely dangerous, and that nothing but psychological incompetence can make them fail to see how much evil is continually wrought by the procedures upon which they rely. We must be especially careful of applying the traditional disciplinary methods to children with any sort of nervous trouble. One who employs them without an intimate knowledge of the pupil will be prone to commit an educational crime. For the right application of suggestion it is desirable that the suggester should have acquired the requisite knowledge by careful psychoanalytical studies and by the observation of individual cases. Those who utilise suggestion without having made a preliminary diagnosis are often taking a leap in the dark. We may compare them to one who fires a gun at random, without knowing what he is likely to hit. 510 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS I must concede that we have to treat the great majority of our pupils suggestively, for we do not know what inner troubles they may be suffering from. But when there are definite nervous symptoms, such as anxiety, a marked feeling of inferiority, incapacity for love, obsessions, or compulsions, the use of severe disciplinary methods without an accurate preliminary examination ought to be strictly forbidden. When, as the outcome of such an examination (a far more important matter than ordinary school examinations), it is apparent that this or that suggestion is indicated, the teacher may confidently set to work on these lines. One point, however, must not be forgotten. Suggestion, which necessitates the operation of an alien will, can never fulfil the ideal of an education that shall be perfectly free and shall cultivate the highest powers of the personality. Even autosuggestion is far from the attainment of this exalted goal. In so far as it is the self-education of a morally mature person, it will always constitute the last stage of educa- tion. But to ask one who is suffering from inhibition of impulse to apply autosuggestion to his own relief, is to ask him to lift himself by his own boot-straps. Self-deliverance is accordant with the spirit of Buddhism, whose goal is nirvana, self-extinction. True liberation, not from life but for true life, can in minor cases be usually secured most simply and securely by the psychoanalytical method. In grave cases, no other method is of any avail. To psychoanalysis, therefore, we shall now turn. 2. Psychoanalysis. (a) Its Fate as an Innovation. So much nonsense has been said and written concerning psychoanalysis as a method and as a theory, that it is almost as essential to explain what psychoanalysis is not, as to explain what it is. All great innovations are apt to be resisted by the tritons just as much as by the minnows. In 1792, when Galvani announced his discovery of a new force of nature, he was ridiculed as " the dancing-master of the frogs." Benjamin Franklin encountered the scorn of the learned men to whom he wished to explain the principle of the lightning conductor. Harvey became the sport of the medical faculty thanks to his discovery of the circulation of the blood. TREATMENT OF ABNORMALITIES 511 Lavoisier, having resolved atmospheric air into its con- stituents, was castigated by Baume the academician, who was outraged at the idea that air should be regarded as non- homogeneous when for two thousand years it had been proclaimed an element. Lebon, the discoverer of illuminating gas, spent the rest of his life in the vain attempt to convince the world that a lamp could burn without a wick. Robert Mayer, who formulated the principle of the conservation of energy, encountered universal contempt. Semmelweiss, the first to recognise that puerperal fever was transmitted by infection, was persecuted for his pains and died in an asylum. As late as 1878, Edison, giving a demonstration of the phono- graph, was denounced by Bouillaud the academician as a swindler and ventriloquist. Einstein, at his inaugural lecture, was dismissed as a bungler. Every one of established reputa- tion seems to be in a terrible fright lest some new-comer shall outshine him. Rarely indeed do we find anyone with the spirit of John the Baptist who ungrudgingly makes ready for the coming of one mightier than himself. That is why the universities, which ought to be the embodiments of the spirit of scientific progress, tend rather to become institutes for the suppression of innovations ; and we find that the suppression is the more forcible in proportion to the boldness with which the new knowledge transcends the old. It is true that this suppression of progress finds its explanation on other grounds in addition to the amazing inertia and the premature ossification of the human intellect. Biologically, it has certain advantages, for it compels the innovator to look carefully to the foundations of his views; and by the threat of persecution it warns off frivolous adherents who would like to reap where they have not sown. The phase in which the innovation is treated as nonsense, is usually followed by a second and shorter phase in which we are told that it is a truism. Not until after this period is it rightly appraised. At the present time, psychoanalysis is in the second phase. Only when a discoverer has suffered much for his work, can he hope that it will make its way. His wisest course will be to expect nothing for himself but everything for the cause. Should he be lucky enough to attain old age, he may perhaps enjoy the advantage of personal recognition. 512 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS Considering how stupid people are, we may certainly con- gratulate Sigmund Freud because his fame is already estab- lished in all civilised lands. But the persecutors still have the upper hand in many respects. For there is much spiteful suspicion and much malicious distortion of his views, and now no less than in the days of John Huss sacred simplicity never misses an opportunity of adding its billet to the martyr's pyre. (&) What Psychoanalysis is not. Psychoanalysis is not a doctrine which endeavours to explain the whole mental life as issuing from the sexual; but it recognises that the sexual life plays an important part in life as a whole, and is responsible for the causation of neuroses and for the creation of aberrations in the love sentiment. It does not endeavour to deduce the whole of the conscious life from the unconscious, but it teaches that the unconscious to a considerable extent guides and controls the conscious. Psychoanalysis does not regard the mind as a mechanism in which the creative energies play no part. On the contrary, it is continually in search of these formative forces, for it regards the impulsive powers in the widest sense of the term, the will that is to say, as the very centre of the human spirit. It studies the phenomena of mental life, not only from the outlook of their causes, though it recognises these as extremely important; it is also concerned as to the purpose and the biological significance of these phenomena. Psychoanalysis is not based solely upon improved hypo- theses and fictions. It starts always from facts. From the careful observation of these it deduces general concepts and laws which it checks, and if need be corrects, by renewed reference to the facts-subjecting the individual happenings to these laws, and, like every other orderly science, maintaining a persistent reciprocal relationship between facts and theories. But the facts always have the last word, whereas the opponents of psychoanalysis (as I had occasion to point out on p. 88) do not trouble about the facts, but concentrate their attack upon the theories and the concepts. These adversaries thus resemble a man who should try to make chemistry and physics seem ridiculous by ignoring experiments and technical achieve- ments, and by carping at the concepts of matter, the ether, the laws of nature, etc. TREATMENT OF ABNORMALITIES 513 Psychoanalysis, far from being a depraved outlook upon life, is a psychological method which can be harmonised with the most diverse moral doctrines. Furthermore, its theory of sublimation is a valuable buttress to ethical idealism. It is not a pedagogical method or theory which claims an exclusive right to lay the foundations of education or to give a final decision concerning the aims and methods of education. But psychoanalysis does claim the right to be regarded as an equal among the various departments of education. Psychoanalysis does not claim that it is competent to remedy all the aberrations of the love sentiment; but it has demonstrated its capacity to give relief in a vast number of instances when other educational and curative measures have failed and could not do other than fail. Just as we object to the underestimate of psychoanalysis, so do we warn against taking an exaggerated view of its possibilities. (c) The Concept and the Aims of Psychoanalysis. Let us now turn to consider what psychoanalysis really is. It will be bbst to start from the name, although we know that every name is inadequate. A man of science will never invite a large company to the christening when he has decided upon a name for his work, but, with rather a wry face, he will hand over his intellectual offspring to the tender mercies of the public. The term " psychoanalysis " was compounded of " psych." and " analysis," Freud adding the vowel " o " to join the two components of the word. We must not enlarge the root " psych." into " psyche," the mind ; we must understand the first syllable of psychoanalysis in an adjectival sense. The mind or soul may be regarded as an immaterial unity, and how could such a thing be analysed ? Or it may be looked upon as an unending relationship, which is equally insusceptible of analysis. When we speak of psychoanalysis, we are thinking rather of the analysis of mental phenomena and facts ; for instance, a dream, an irresistible impulse, a headache, an incapacity to carry out normal voluntary movements, etc. But we think also of the analysis of a life Now what does " analysis " mean ? It means a splitting up, the demonstration of the individual characteristics of a thing. This is how traditional psychology has mainly under- stood the aim of analysis. 514 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS But Freud goes much further than this. I think I am right in explaining the significance of the term as threefold ; epistemological, historical, and biological. 1. Analysis has an epistemological task. It must ascertain the inner significance of a phenomenon-a phenomenon which has been rendered important to Freud by a medical interest and to ourselves by an educational interest. It has to tell us, for instance, the inner meaning of a dumbness that is sudden in its onset, and has no obvious bodily cause. What is the meaning of a confused dream, or of some failure of action such as a slip of the tongue ? Is there any such inner meaning, some purpose hidden from the doer (for of course we have no right to assume anything of the kind apriori) ? If the analysis discovers some such secret meaning, we say that it has interpreted the phenomenon subjected to analysis. Integral aberrations are to be similarly interpreted. The secret program of the life is to be disclosed. In all these cases, psychoanalysis is penetrating into the region of the unconscious, whose activities are manifested in the phenomenon subjected to analysis. 2. Analysis has a historical task. It aims at tracing back certain mental processes to their causes and motives, in so far as this is possible in the case of mental processes. It seeks to answer the questions, How did these mental phenomena arise ? What motives were operative ? What outward determinants were at work ; what created these determinants ; what previous experiences contributed ; what moral impulses played their part ? In this analysis we may distinguish between recent or immediate influences and remote factors (regression to earlier experiences, the influence of heredity, etc.). 3. Analysis has a biological problem to solve. It has to enquire to what extent the phenomena subjected to analysis subserve the endeavour towards the preservation and the maintenance of life. It discloses the relationship of these phenomena to the economy of life, what purposes they fulfil. It shows how deliberate aims conceived in the interests of life, and unconscious purposes directed towards the same end, are to be attained. (In the first instance, where conscious aims are concerned, we speak of finality; in the second instance, where we have to do with aims which are TREATMENT OF ABNORMALITIES 515 unconscious as far as human beings are concerned, and whose purposiveness is of an order subordinate to a higher natural or divine will, we speak of teleology.} When the analysis finds evidence of repression, it always discovers that the thrusting down out of consciousness has been effected in order to save the latter from something disagreeable. But this does not solve all the elements of the biological problem# We have to investigate the determinants of the sense of dis- pleasure ; and when we do so we find that the moral conscious- ness would not or could not endure that which has been repressed, for it seemed detestable ; and we discover that the strongest of all repressions are those in which the thrusting out of consciousness has been determined by the conscience, by shame, or by remorse-a proof of the preponderant power of morality in the human mind. Further, we examine the forces which have made it possible for the impulse whose direct and normal activity has been prevented by repression, to find vent by a circuitous route or in a masked form. In this investigation we encounter vital tendencies which are not explicable in terms of the individual existence, and can be accounted for only in terms of the relationship between the individual life and the general life of humanity and the world. We perceive that the mental life of the individual has references that extend far beyond the physical and animal existence of the individual; and that the creative activities of the intellect, the emotions, and the will have their essential part to play in the normal course of life. In other words, we realise that technical advances, science, art, poesy, civilisation, and morality, are no mere luxuries, but necessary functions, obviously derivable from human nature and the universal life. Thus the biological outlook enlarges to become a meta- biological outlook, which is deducible by a strictly logical process from the presuppositions of a biology based on observation and experiment. Whereas the biological way of looking at disease is content with the demonstration that the flight into neurosis aims at escaping from what is disagreeable and at a gain from the illness, the metabiological investigation shows what higher vital interests were fighting on behalf of the repression, and of the reaction of what has been repressed. This metabiological outlook is of extreme importance in connexion with the aberra- tions of love. It leads beyond an ethical naturalism and 516 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS discloses the higher powers which were creatively at work even in the production of aberrations. This more exalted way of regarding life saves us from the partiality of those who would fain contemplate nothing but uncleanness, and who refuse to recognise simultaneously the noblest trends of personality. We must not forget that repression is in most cases determined exclusively by the conflict between the divine and the bestial. How, therefore, can we be content with merely tracking the bestial to its lair ? The foregoing may be considered an adequate statement of the individual tasks of psychoanalysis. But certain important bearings remain to be considered. I shall refer, therefore, to the peculiarities of the three aims. i. In the attempt to fulfil all three of these aims, the main endeavour is to bring into consciousness the unconscious impulses and ideas. Primarily we are concerned with matters and conations which are connected with repression-which have not been simply forgotten, but have been forcibly thrust out of consciousness. That which has to be disinterred from the unconscious has either been conscious at one time, were it only for a few seconds ; or else, at the very moment when it was about to enter into the focus of consciousness, it was chased away and repressed ;1 or, finally, it consists of the unconscious elaboration of such repressed material. In front of and behind this most specific and most important object of psychoanalysis, the analyst discovers other psychical entities which are of significance to him. He studies the conscious also, and endeavours to illuminate its obscurities ; he investi- gates that which has been barely noticed, and brings it into the full light of consciousness. But that which has been repressed is of more importance to him. To some extent he is concerned with that which has been repre- sented with no more than moderate energy, because it has not been extremely distressing to the conscious. To this category belong, for instance, the immediate motives of a life plan which is symbolically indicated in a dream, those of a symbolical anticipation of a scientific cognition, those of an artistic inspiration or a moral impulse that arises directly out of the hidden depths of the mind. Such data, which, « Cf. Pfister, Was bietet die Psychanalyse dem Erzieher ? pp. 27-29. TREATMENT OF ABNORMALITIES 517 though unconscious, are not vigorously repressed, are spoken of by Freud as fireconscious. But in the case of illness and moral aberration, the more important though more difficult task is the discovery, the rendering conscious, of the unconscious in the narrower sense of the term-of that which has been vigorously repressed. We shall not be sur- prised to find that that which has been most vigorously repressed is precisely that which is most distasteful to the moral consciousness, the most repulsive refuse and excreta of the mind. Let me repeat, however, that it is one-sided and erroneous to contend that psychoanalysis is solely interested in these repulsive matters, which, indeed, only acquire importance because they have been extremely repugnant to the conscience. Behind and adjacent to these repressions in the narrower sense of the term, psychoanalysis recognises other varieties of the unconscious. Among these may be mentioned the whole stock-in-trade of memory, that is, what has been simply forgotten, the acquired and inherited dispositions of thought and feeling and will, the general capacities and aptitudes. Of course psychoanalysis does not aim at bringing into consciousness all that is unconscious in the narrower sense of the term, but only that whose disinterment is rendered desir- able by exalted considerations of health and moral freedom. We have learned that, in certain conditions, repressions may contribute to the general value of a human being. 2. Even in the most favourable cases, then, the disclosures of the analysis are restricted. The mind is infinitely rich and deep, so that there can be no absolute analysis, no analysis which discloses the ultimate abysses of personality, none which reveals all the determinants of a mental process. We shall never be able to give ultimate interpretations, ultimate historical, biological, and metabiological explanations ; nor is this necessary for educational purposes. When, therefore, we speak of a mother-fixation, of a Hamlet type, etc., we are making important contributions towards a cure ; but we do not delude ourselves with the fancy that we are describing more than one side of the personality, and we know that the terms we use are essentially vague. No neurotic should be of interest to the analyst solely as an Oedipus or a Hamlet, solely suffering from hysteria or from anxiety neurosis. 518 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS Keys that fit all or nearly all locks are inadequate for educational purposes.1 To the analyst, the art of individualisa- tion is certainly quite as important as that of typification, although the latter is often overesteemed. Among the most essential qualities for the successful psychoanalyst is a venera- tion for the inexhaustible richness and variety of the human mind. If the analyst is to avoid lapsing into arid rule-of- thumb methods, he must have, not only the strict logicality of the scientist, but also the sensitiveness of the poet. The more refined the temperament of the analysand, the more delicate must be the perceptions of the analyst. 3. The analyst has to see into the realm of the unconscious ; but an additional, and indeed primary, object of the analysis is to enable the analysand to look into his own unconscious. Consequently, the analysand must be left to find out as much as possible for himself. Interpretations and explanations must not be provided ready-made. The analyst must not spare the analysand the responsibility of making his own discoveries. In my own work, I never promise to give an accurate and final solution. I say that from the phenomena to be subjected to analysis and from the patient's associations, this or that interpretation is deducible with a considerable measure of probability. We make reservations and correc- tions, just as a biologist to whom a disinterred skeleton is submitted, will tentatively decide what the animal was after an examination of the teeth, but will perhaps revise his estimate when he has studied the vertebrae. The analysand must never be allowed to forget that the most important part of the analysis devolves upon himself. (d) Indispensability of Psychoanalysis for the Orthopaedics of the Mind ; its intellectual and emotional Character. What is the aim of all these labours ? We have to under- take them because the unconscious is not amenable to the impulses which directly influence the conscious, because the unconscious has laws of its own. We may prohibit smuggling, ' We say even less when we say of a man that he has a mother complex. The term " complex " signifies nothing more than an affectively tinged, conscious or repressed, group of ideas. It is often used so as to convey very little meaning. That is why, when I wish to denote the persistent control of a man's mind by his attitude towards the mother, I prefer to speak of a mother-fixation rather than of a mother complex. TREATMENT OF ABNORMALITIES 519 and threaten it with the direst punishment; but of what avail is this if the smugglers are clever enough to keep themselves and their traffic out of sight ? In such cases, we must have recourse to the arts of the secret agent. Psychoanalysis is detective work. Pedagogy that is concerned only with the conscious life is a superficial affair, precisely because it does not dig beneath the surface of consciousness. It levels the mole-hills, but never thinks of trying to catch the mole. It deplores a great deal that is played upon the stage of con- sciousness, and ignores the fact that in the wings much is in progress which is hidden from the spectator and is nevertheless decisive as a contribution to his artistic enjoyment. Can analysis help us in this difficulty ? The psycho- analysts, taking their stand on the results of multiform experience, assure us that it can. The opponents of psycho- analysis deny this, but their denials are based on vague speculations-just as Bouillaud declared that Edison's phono- graph was a fraud, and stigmatised the inventor as a ventrilo- quist, on the apriori ground that it was impossible for such paltry materials as metal and membrane to reproduce the noble tones of the human voice. We waste our time when we try to argue with such scholastics. Happily their outlooks are perishable, and their criticism dies with them, but it often lasts too long for the common weal and for the impatient pioneers of truth. Enough here, in support of psychoanalysis, to refer to the teachings of experience. Hundreds upon hundreds of symp- toms, such as paralyses, spasmodic affections, and irresistible impulses, which were utterly enigmatic until recent days, have become perfectly comprehensible alike epistemologically, historically, and biologically, since, with the aid of psycho- analysis, certain experiences or fantasies (the latter being decisive) have been disclosed. Why did the boy whose case was described on p. 195 continue to throw up the table- furniture into the air as long as his sister was in the room ; why was the sister affected with hiccup until she read Ekke- hard ? There have been adduced in this book numerous phenomena, numerous facts, which were absolutely incom- prehensible in the light of the old psychology, but have become readily explicable thanks to the disclosure of their unconscious determinants. Comparing such cases one with another, we 520 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS find that constant types of activity are revealed. Elsewhere I have traced the operation of various laws of the kind.1 What more could be asked ? But our opponents do not examine the facts. They prefer to saddle the Rosinante of speculation, to rail, to carp, and to deny, when experience, when observation and experiment, should be decisive. Inasmuch as, however, we do not despise theory, but regard it (so long as it is supported by experience) as essential for the proper use of psychoanalysis, let us recapitulate briefly why analysis is necessary and useful. Suffice it to mention one negative and one positive reason. 1. In the unconscious manifestations we have to contend with, we recognise the design of the unconscious to express itself under a mask. But as soon as the observer realises what the mask hides, the disguise becomes unmeaning. Discarding metaphor, let us say that repression and the indirect manifestations of the unconscious aim at sparing the conscious disagreeable memories and self-condemnations. But as soon as analysis has disclosed the hidden motives, the cunning of the elusive symbolisation in the form of irresistible impulses, painful symptoms, immoral acts, etc., has become futile. However, this explanation does not suffice. We have still to show why a historical and a biological elaboration are likewise requisite in most cases. 2. Psychoanalysis reunites the broken or partially severed ties between the repressed and the conscious, thus enabling the repressed matters and the cramped impulses to resume normal relationships with the conscious, in accordance with the laws of mental continuity. To amplify the explanation, let me add that by repression an idea or an impulse is partially withdrawn from the influence of consciousness. The idea or the impulse cannot be remembered to the extent that seems appro- priate to its affective value ; or the function cannot be properly performed, because this would renew the painful impression which led to the repression. I may refer to what was said upon this topic on p. 318. Psychoanalytical study has shown that we cannot proceed simply from repressed ideas to new ideas, we cannot merely ignore the old and recognise the new ; we have to go back to the old positions, to revise them, and thus elaborate new outlooks. Until we have done so, we are slaves • Zum Kampf um die Psychoanalyse, pp. no et seq. TREATMENT OF ABNORMALITIES 521 of our own past. In many cases the work is done unconsciously and automatically. But a far safer and more trustworthy method is to ensure that this coming to terms with the past in order that we may free ourselves from its spell shall be a fully conscious process. The value of historical study rightly pursued consists mainly in such a coming to terms with the past and in such a liberation from its bonds. Psychoanalysis, then, is a fully conscious quittance with the past. When there is a dispute concerning a right of way, concerning the ownership of water power, and the like, clear views are gained by a historical and critical study of the con- flicting claims. It is the same with psychoanalysis. For proof of this I must refer to what I have written elsewhere.1 One additional point, hitherto ignored, must now be con- sidered. The reader must not suppose, as the foregoing demonstration might have led him to imagine, that psycho- analysis is a purely intellectual affair. Side by side with the current of ideas, runs a stream of feelings and conations. We might express the matter pictorially by saying that the idea is no more than the eye of the impulse. Scouts are not yet an army. Psychoanalysis has to disinter repressed feelings as well as repressed ideas. The main purpose of psychoanalysis is to modify impulses (in the widest sense of that term). Impulses, too, have their laws. We have learned that during the analysis the analyst exercises a powerful influence upon the recanalisation of the impulses, but that this influence is not easy to control. The analyst constitutes, as it were, the door by which the repressed impulses and ideas make their way back into the outer world. To him become attached, as far as may be, the feelings of love and hatred that have now been made conscious, although the analysand remains unaware of this transposition of personality. Impressions, ideas, and judgments of value, as they emerge from the depths of the unconscious, are likewise readily pro- jected on to the analyst. Thus he becomes the object of a fondness which has really been earned by some one else or by several other persons ; or he becomes the object of a dislike for which the actions of another are responsible. In the former case we speak of positive transference ; in the latter, of negative transference. I shall describe subsequently the management of « Was bietet die Psychanalyse dem Erzieher ? pp. 78 et seq. 522 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS the transference during the later stages of the analytical educa- tion. Suffice it to say here that the analysand has himself to take up a definite position towards this phenomenon of transference, just as towards all the other manifestations of the unconscious. Psychoanalytical orthopaedics is indispensable whenever vigorous repressions and crampings have interfered to a notable extent with the normal development of the love sentiment, provided that the conditions requisite for the release of im- pulse can be supplied. To this matter I shall return. (e) The Position of sexual Analysis within Psychoanalysis. Per se there is no reason why sexuality should be given a special position within paedanalysis-psychoanalysis as applied to children. A genuine analyst seek to discover all injurious repressions, regardless of the impulse to which they are related. It is false to say that analysis is essentially sexual analysis. Only dogmatists will venture to make such an assertion. Nevertheless I do not propose to deny that, in the literature and practice of psychoanalysis, the making conscious of repressed sexuality plays a considerable part. But the ad- versaries of psychoanalysis exaggerate the role of the sexual. They grossly distort the facts when they contend that Freud has attempted to deduce the whole of mental life from sexuality that Freud's only interest is in sexual matters, and so on. In this connexion, I may refer the reader to what was said in justification of Freud on p. 423. But I will enlarge on the topic a little here. 1. Freud uses the concept sexuality in a way that differs from that of current speech. He employs the term in a much wider sense, so that its connotations are practically equivalent to those of " love."1 He thinks it undesirable to give a precise definition.3 Recently he has maintained that even the im- pulses of self-preservation are of a sexual nature. Formerly he had contrasted them with the sexual impulses, describing them under the separate name of the " ego impulses " ; but he has now abandoned this distinction.3 He is therefore ' Cf. Freud, Ueber " wilde " Psychoanalyse, *' Zentralblatt ftlr Psycho- analyse," vol. i, p. 92.-Vide supra, pp. 337 et seq. » Freud, Vorlesungen zur EinfUhrung in die Psychoanalyse, p. 346. 3 Freud, Jenseits des Lustprinzips, p. 50. TREATMENT OF ABNORMALITIES 523 compelled to face the question whether all the impulses may not be of a sexual (" libidinous ") nature. However, he de- clines to answer this question in the affirmative, although he thinks it would be difficult to prove that there are non-sexual impulses. But the fact that this difficulty arises, makes it eminently desirable that the concepts of impulse and of sexuality should be sharply defined. As regards impulse, it is necessary to point out that we are here concerned with nothing more than a col- lective name whose significance cannot be strictly circum- scribed (supra pp. 299 and 330). We must not allow the faculty psychology which was given its quietus by Herbart to raise its head once more. Sexuality does not exist per se. What exists per se is the vital impulse, which displays its activity in the field of sex among others. Moreover, as I have said more than once, I consider that we are entitled to restrict the idea of sexuality to " the sum of all the physical and psychical phenomena which concern reproduction or the activity of the reproductive organs " (supra p. 337). But if we understand the sexual as comprehensively as Freud, I cannot see that the founder of psychoanalysis has said a word too much regarding the significance of the sexual. When he makes sexuality play the leading part in repression, the causation of symptoms, and the interpretation of symptoms, he is careful to insist that this refers only to the so-called transference hysterias, namely, anxiety hysteria, conversion hysteria (in which bodily anomalies of psychical origin pre- dominate), and obsessional neurosis. The "sexual" is not made to play this preponderant part in the case of the other neuroses or in the life of normal persons.1 2. To make it easier for the reader to understand Freud's ideas, I may refer to the "organic outlook" (supra p. 91), according to which the various impulses are closely interrelated. When we study these complications in the mental life, and trace the activities of sexuality and love, we have no difficulty in ascertaining that the primary impulses play their part in every neurosis and in every aberration of love. Let me recapitu- late what I have already said on this topic. Many psycholo- gists have actually proposed to refer all the emotions to bodily 1 Freud, Vorlesungen zur Einftihrung in die Psychoanalyse, pp. 340 et seq. 524 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS sensations, not excepting the highest artistic, moral, and re- ligious sentiments. This view is supported even by idealists, such as William James. I regard the theory as erroneous, but I admit that no emotion, however exalted, can occur without the participation of organic sensations. We have learned, however, that when there is a sudden and vigorous sexual repression, the highest feelings temporarily languish, and that the individual sinks into a shadowy existence, nothing being left to him but a terrible distress at the loss of all active emotion and will. The elemental impulses constitute the indispensable basis of the highest mental activities. Were the elemental impulses (among which the sexual impulse certainly plays a notable part) eliminated, the higher mental activities would suffer, would atrophy, just as the cultivated fruit-tree atrophies when the wild standard upon which it has been grafted perishes. This fact is no more derogatory to the value of the higher men- tal life than the undeniable needs of bodily metabolism are derogatory to that life. It would be absurd, because of this connexion, to represent art, science, and religion as nothing more than sexual products of a higher order. Freud has been careful to show that in the process of " sublimation " what happens is not merely that sexuality mounts to a higher level. We should say, rather, that the sexual conation turns away from the aim of sexual pleasure towards another aim, genetic- ally connected with the former, but one which must now be denominated not sexual but social.1 Let us now look at the matter from the other side. Every neurosis and every aberration of love presupposes that the individuality has been shaken in its central interests and di- verteddrom its normal development. Since the amatory life and sexuality are certainly among our central interests, we shall anticipate that in every neurotic aberration anomalies of love and sexuality will be present, and this expectation is fulfilled by experience. As long as the love life is satisfactory, we can hardly conceive of a neurosis arising, and I cannot recall having ever encountered such nervous troubles in one whose love relationships were all that could be desired. It is amazing how much human beings can bear when the craving in their hearts for love is satisfied. A child can endure blindness, paralysis, poverty, contempt, overwork-if only it finds com- 1 Freud, Vorlesungen zur Einfuhrung in die Psychoanalyse, p. 398. TREATMENT OF ABNORMALITIES 525 pensation in the love of its parents (supra p. 343). But nothing can compensate for the lack of such love. Does not this fact support the theory of ethical idealism ? It is absolutely incontestable that love, in the wider meaning, embodies numerous sensory and emotional ele- ments. Pestalozzi extols sensuality (not, of course, in the narrower sense of sexuality) as one of the most important sources of love ; and the analysis of consciousness discloses that the incorporated sensual elements are as obviously present in the higher love as rainwater is present in plants. But no one maintains that plants are nothing but canalised rainwater. Because it is true that no neurosis arises without an inhibi- tion of love, we must not therefore infer that the cause of a neurosis must always be sought in the sexual sphere. On the other hand, it is true that a disturbance in vital development can only cause neurotic aberrations when the love sentiment is involved in the disturbance. A lack of freedom will only drive a child into aberrant courses when the child (as often happens) feels illwill towards the parents on this account ; or when the child, having entered into extra-domestic relation- ships, as in school, for instance, can find there no satisfaction for its love needs. These considerations explain why Freud, using his own terminology, is perfectly right in saying that when we have to do with transference neuroses we must look for the cause of disease in the domain of sexuality (i.e. love). 3. The reason why sexual analysis bulks so largely in psychoanalytical literature is that sexuality in the narrower sense has hitherto been treated by science as a negligible quan- tity, its enormous importance having been ignored. The poets have been better informed than the men of science. Even the opponents of psychoanalysis have recognised that Freud has done yeoman's service by his study of this difficult and obscure domain. When persons with unclean imaginations declare that the labours of Freud and his successors have been instigated by a delight in filth, they are merely demonstrating their own depravity. Nietzsche phrases it admirably : " The dread of wild beasts has long been inbred in man, including the dread of the beast within himself. Zarathustra calls it ' the inner beast.' This ancient dread, subtilised at length. 526 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS spiritualised, intellectualised, is, I think, what to-day we term science." 1 4. From earliest childhood onwards, the sexual impulse is far more vigorously repressed than any of the other impulses. The field of sex is wrapped in mystery. It is surrounded by endless taboos, relating not only to sins of action, but to sins of thought-to mere reflection concerning this wide province of life, which is so obviously of great importance to mankind. The sexual organs are taboo, and the processes of reproduction are taboo. These prohibitions cultivate, not a free and ethical modesty, but a tendency to hide, full of anxiety, in the hope of escaping some unknown but dreadful thing. Parents, other- wise honourable, lie barefacedly when they speak of sexual matters. In a word, the whole traditional system of sexual education is a system of subtle repression. And when a disaster ensues or an aberration arises, instead of treating the trouble rationally, instead of guiding sublimation, and teaching the control of impulse, the powers of repression are once more set to work. Can we be surprised that when we study the history of neuroses we are continually encountering sexual causes, inasmuch as the sexual impulse is after all of enormous importance ? 5. Nor must we overlook the fact that, properly speaking, a sexual analysis in the narrower sense of the term is only undertaken when the mind is obviously diseased in respect of these very matters of sex. When a surgeon finds that an operation on the genital organs is essential to the preservation of life, who would dream of prohibiting this operation on the ground of indecency ? Hostile critics have contended that analysis introduces into the child's mind sexual thoughts which it had never dreamed of entertaining, and that its " innocence " is thereby sullied (William Stern). This cen- sure is out of place as far as the proper use of psychoanalysis is concerned. When false, vulgar, and unseemly ideas are disturbing the development of love, enlightenment must obviously be undertaken. Does this enlightenment, when conducted with tact, with moral earnestness, and with educa- tional refinement, sully the child's " innocence " ? Surely the reverse is true ? We must remember that the unconscious is far more powerful than the conscious. When unwholesome 1 Also sprach Zarathustra, p. 440. TREATMENT OF ABNORMALITIES 527 sexual ideas are drawn into the light if day, this is done in order to deprive them of their excessive power, and to facilitate their application in directions accordant with the demands of morality. Experience is continually showing that a rightly conducted analysis exercises precisely such a moderating influ- ence. The psychoanalyst will not undertake an analysis with- out sufficient cause, any more than the surgeon uses the knife without sufficient cause. I know of no reason, either theoretical or practical, why the saying " the truth shall make you free " should be false as far as the sexual life is concerned. But it must be an integral and wholesome truth, conveyed in the right manner. The well-trained analyst will be the first to condemn the needless introduction of sexual ideas, the under- mining of modesty, the asking of questions tending to arouse disgust. (/) The educational Aim of the Psychoanalyst. (The Control of Impulses : Sublimation.} Psychoanalysis, like any other psychological method, can be applied by persons of the most various opinions upon morals and religion. Believers and unbelievers, Christians and Jews, polytheists and atheists, will all claim the right to practise it. But no one will deny that pedagogy cannot formulate its aims without a careful ethical orientation. On pp. 450 et seq. I have explained my views as to the relationship between ethics and the data of psycho- analytical research. Here, however, it is necessary to make a more formal statement of the psychoanalyst's educational aims. We showed that education should help the pupil to develop his powers in such a way as will enable him lovingly and dutifully to do the utmost service to humanity. From the standpoint of the theory of repression this implies that we must get rid of all repressions which tend to hinder such a development of character. We know that repressions are not invariably harmful. It is with repressions as with micro- organisms. Timid folk with a half knowledge of " germs " would like to free the world from them all. But there are health-promoting microorganisms, in default of which we could not live. Similarly with repressions. If we were to clear them all away root and branch, we should rid the world 528 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS of genius, and enthrone the commonplace. May God guard us against so dread a calamity I Psychoanalysis is only re- quisite when repressions have led to aberrations which gravely impair the quality of a life in its individual and social aspects. But what happens to the mental energies and values which are disinterred from the depths of the unconscious ? What becomes of the impulses which had been rendered stagnant by repression ? The treasure-trove is utilised for the general advantage ; the underground water, which was flowing into the cellar, soaking the walls, and making the house unhealthy, is guided into conduits, and henceforward does good service to the inhabitants of the dwelling. Every repression robs the will, the conscience, the affections, and the reason, of a part of their available wealth, for that which has been repressed is no longer at the disposal of the conscious. The analysis achieves its reconquest. Repression gives place to conscious control. The personality, aware of its responsibility, will thence- forward endeavour to administer the reconquered province rightly, lest the regained territory should be snatched away once more. The control over the impulses must be maintained. Since, however, impulses cannot be locked up in a box, since, as their name implies, they must drive1 something, their energy must be utilised for a definite purpose. Their use must be purposive, not in the sense of a petty utilitarianism, but in the sense of an ethic that does justice to the true dignity of the human spirit. Freud has proved that this redirection of the impulses can only be effected by means of sublimation. This term is so often misunderstood, that I must say something more about the matter. On pp. 291 et seq. and 299 et seq., I explained that sublimation must not be regarded as nothing more than the direction of elementary impulses towards higher ends ; but I pointed out that the elementary impulses were the indispensable foundation of the highest mental states. I used the simile of the plant which cannot live without rain- water and yet is something very different from water. To ' It is not easy to convey in English the illuminating word-play of the German original. In German, " impulse " is " Trieb," and " to drive " is " treiben." In our own tongue, we have the same association of ideas between " impulse " and " to impel."-Translators' Note. TREATMENT OF ABNORMALITIES 529 amplify this, let me add that what is directed towards a higher end is not this or that individual impulse, but the integral and unique vital impulse which is active in all the manifesta- tions of life. In its ultimate nature, this application of the life impulse to higher ends is inexplicable-just as physical happenings are ultimately inexplicable. We have to content ourselves with recording the facts, and with then giving tenta- tive explanations of the causal relationships. We thus dis- cover that in the direction of the elementary impulses towards more exalted moral ends, there always occurs an activation of rudiments which transcend the elementary impulses. Sub- limation invariably implies the liberation of higher mental capacities. We see, likewise, that mental energies which, during the progress of the neurosis, found expression in noxious manifestations (pains, spasmodic affections, irresistible im- pulses, obsessions, illusions, etc.), have been liberated from these so that they can now be applied for higher purposes. Although the sensory character of that which was primarily sesunal persists, in this new development it occupies a far less conspicuous place, being at most a faint undertone whose primitive character cannot be detected without close observa- tion. This distinguishes sublimation from the process I have termed " elevation," wherein there is not a transition to an ethically higher category, but wherein an elementary process is projected unchanged on to an imaginary object As in- stances of this process of " elevation," I may mention the unsavoury love fantasies of many nuns and of Count von Zinzendorf. In these cases, amatory lusts of an improper kind, lusts which cannot be openly displayed, are directed towards the heavenly bridegroom. We all of us suffer from repressions which impair our general value. We resemble trees in which most of the buds are unopened. But this by no means implies that we are all in need of psychoanalysis. Nevertheless, no one will deny that it would be splendid if we were able to consecrate all our energies to the service of a reasonable and dutiful affection, instead of, as at present, devoting the major part of our powers to paltry, ugly, and harmful purposes. If, finally, we think of the multitude of those who are led into distress and misery by the aberrations of the love senti- ment, and if we picture to ourselves how their splendid energies, 530 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS which have hitherto been enslaved to the demons of evil and disease, might henceforward be liberated for the noblest purposes of life, we shall have some idea of the glories of the realm which Jesus contemplated as the Kingdom of God. (g) Method and Course of the analytical Orthopaedics of the Mind. A corrective education by no means exhausts the signifi- cance of psychoanalysis for pedagogy. All those who are well acquainted with the possibilities of psychoanalysis are unani- mous in the view that it furnishes us with knowledge that is extremely important in the management of normal children. In his excellent little book Psychanalytische Erfahr ungen aus der Volksschulpraxis, Zulliger writes on p. 145 : " Psycho- analytical study has gradually led me to modify my educa- tional practice. By degrees I have been forced to abandon the numerous educational blunders of the older pedagogy." The field thus opened is too vast to be explored here. We must content ourselves with considering the use of psycho- analysis for mental orthopaedics. But even in this exposition we shall encounter great difficulties in expounding the method, and can only attempt to give brief indications. First of all, it is necessary to distinguish between the analysis of an isolated symptom which presents itself as the reaction of an impulse whose direct manifestation has been interfered with by repression, and the analysis of an integral personality. Of course there are particular symptoms which can only be understood in the light of a knowledge of the in- tegral personality, for it is well known that in every act of life the whole individuality is at work as well as the sum of all past experiences. But there are symptoms which can be understood fairly well per se-just as we can understand a physical relationship without tracing back its antecedents into the remote past. We have, let us say, to consider a dream. First of all, we ask the subject to relate this dream without comment or addition, and we make a written record. Then we deal with the dream fragment by fragment, asking the analysand to concentrate attention upon one fragment after another, and to tell us as he does so everything that comes into his mind. He is to do this promptly, whether such TREATMENT OF ABNORMALITIES 531 ideas seem important or unimportant, agreeable or disageeable ; and he is to avoid any thought of interpretation. At first, many subjects find it difficult to comply with these demands. They tend, as a rule, to lay special stress on some of the associa- tions ; or they expect the analyst to give them a lead, to tell them what sort of associations are wanted ; or they attempt interpretations. With patience, however, the analyst will be able to overcome all such vagaries. He will remain quite imperturbable, playing the part of a searchlight which acts in a purely mechanical fashion. As soon as the analyst has enriched the dream text with a sufficient number of associations, he will perceive that the dream is only the pictorial or dramatic expression of a very different matter, just as mostwords, and, more characteristically, fables, convey a very different meaning from the obvious one. We speak of " persons," without remembering that the word primarily signifies something which " sounds through," or allows a sound to come through. In the case of fables, we speedily realise that human character types are represented by the wolves, the sheep, and the crows, which hold converse. It is the same, for the most part, in dreams. A strange face makes its appearance. When we examine it closely, we shall find, perhaps, that it has the eyes of the father, the chin of a hot-tempered teacher, the nose of a strict captain-and by this recognition the whole setting becomes that of some definite place. Or the dream relates to a peacock, and the associations disclose that, prior to the dream, the dreamer had had occasion to think his good wife unduly vain, and we realise that the peacock is the symbol of vanity. Or we dream of cherry cake, and remember having been punished in childhood for having pilfered a piece of cherry cake ; now there rises into memory some recent instance of greediness, and we perceive what actual interest the dream denoted. The dream will have been successfully interpreteted when a uniform meaning has been found for the dream and the associations, a significance that accords with the mental situa- tion as a whole. But is not all this an empty trifling ? By no means. Both theoretically and practically we can prove that there is good justification for it, that it is positively essential. The investigations of Walther Poppelreuter, the experimental 532 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS psychologist, have shown why the eliciting of free associations helps us to an interpretation. Hypnotic experiment fur- nishes additional proof. Having hypnotised a person who knows nothing about psychoanalysis, we suggest a dream concerning special objects, and we find that artificially we can produce exactly the same results as those which, according to psychoanalytical theory, automatically arise in sleep. The laws at work in the two cases are identical. Another impor- tant point is that phenomena previously inexplicable, such as moodiness, pains, haunting thoughts, and the like, will often become perfectly intelligible as the result of the analysis of a dream. Such an analysis will disclose the causal sequence, will explain what incident has occasioned this or that repres- sion, will show us what new path a repressed impulse has entered after it has been analytically investigated, and so on. The analysis of dreams plays in the analytical orthopaedics of the mind a part similar to that which is played by the observa- tion of the compass in navigation. But it does something more, for dream analysis enables us to track to its lair the unruly impulse that is playing tricks, enables us to hunt it from retreat to retreat until it settles down to the desired functioning. Such interpretations of dreams are, in fact, far more trust- worthy than are interpretations of a poem, a historical character, a picture. For in the case of the dream we can collect as many associations as we please. Moreover, should our interpretation be false, the repression will usually persist. The same dream will often recur again and again until the right interpretation has been found. Then the dream will no longer trouble the analysand. If, however, we have to do with a deep-rooted and difficult symptom, direct analysis will not help us out of the difficulty. We shall then have to analyse whatever offers itself ; sometimes a dream, sometimes a blunder, sometimes an unmeaning collo- cation of sounds, or an unmeaning scribble (cryptolalia and cryptography), sometimes a reminiscence of childhood. All roads lead to Rome, the Rome of the central conflict. The unconscious, which creates a morbid symptom as a substitute for the inhibited normal activity, is likewise responsible for these trifling manifestations of everyday fife. I am not attempting here to give a guide to the practice TREATMENT OF ABNORMALITIES 533 of analytical curative education ; my aim merely is to make the reader understand the general principles of the method. The analysis as a whole does not make a direct attack upon the morbid symptom ; it is levelled against the resistances which are opposed to the bringing of the repression and its artifices into consciousness. In the course of the analysis, there ensues the transference which has already been de- scribed, the projection upon the analyst of the ideas and the appertinent affects that are disinterred from the unconscious. But the transference is much more than this, for its chief feature is that impulses which are reaching out towards reality thanks to the dwindling of the resistance to their entry into the conscious, are also projected on to the analyst. The neurosis thus assumes a new configuration. It revolves mainly around the person of the analyst, who may be idolised or may be detested in a way for which there is no obvious justification. For example, a girl who is almost cured of asthma, and who might reasonably be expected to be grateful to the analyst, will loathe him and depreciate him without having the slightest reason for her antagonistic attitude. Or an old lady who is nearly seventy, may fall violently in love with a young doctor, though all the time she reproaches herself for her folly. These manifestations of transference are psychologically indispensable, and they cannot be avoided however skilfully the method is applied. Moreover, they occur in the course of all other curative methods. They are explicable by the laws of mental continuity, but they are the most delicate and diffi- cult matters with which we have to deal in the course of our analytical work. They must be managed in a strictly analyti- cal fashion, by disclosing their historical roots, and by showing the analysand that the remarkable feelings which are now projected on to the analyst, really appertain to some earlier acquaintance-it may be the father, it may be a teacher, or it may be some other person of either sex. Here, as throughout the neurosis, there is an anachronism, a confounding of the present with the past. Or we can formulate the situation in terms that likewise apply to every product of neurosis by say- ing that we are concerned with a malassociation, for a false attitude towards some object of previous experience is now assumed towards the analyst. There has been progress in so far as in the conscious there has been a breaking away from 534 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS the previous object ; but the cure is incomplete, for in the unconscious the undesirable fixation persists. By explaining the illusion we unloose the new neurotic bond which has been the outcome of an undesirable infantile fixation, of love or hatred which was a hindrance to healthy activity. The love is then sublimated to friendship, but this must not be regarded as an indispensable source of enjoyment, for that would signify that the cure was incomplete. If the affect we have to deal with be one of hatred, we must try to deprive the emotion of its force by inducing a fully conscious forgiveness of the original object of the hatred, so that the analysand's desire for sub- limation shall be activated. The breaking away from the analyst is usually facilitated by the direction of the analysand's thoughts towards inspiring and ideal activities. The right management of the transference is one of the most potent influences in the cure. Thus, according to Freud, the transference is the battlefield upon which the contest between the conflicting forces in the analysand is fought out.1 If the enfranchisement is happily effected on the lines above sketched, we may speak confidently of a cure. The whole procedure is tedious and difficult. I must admit that in my earlier writings, and especially in Die fisychanaly- tische Methode, I failed to lay enough stress upon these draw- backs. At that time I was content if the analysand felt well and happy, and I did not realise the distinction between a cure under the suggestive influence of a vigorous positive trans- ference, on the one hand, and a purely analytical success, on the other. Moreover, I was somewhat too precipitate in my attack upon the symptom of which the patient complained. When time presses, this method may be recommended. But we must not think that the relief of symptoms is our sole aim. We have to work for the highest ethical development of the life, and the patient is apt to forget this more exalted goal as soon as his symptoms have been relieved. Analysis is educa- tion, and the analyst must not expect that his educational task can be performed prestissimo. The marvellously fine and complicated network of neurosis, and of the aberrations in the love sentiment that arise from repression, cannot be traced into its finest ramifications with- ' Freud, Vorlesungen tur Einflihrung in die Psychoanalyse, p. 534. TREATMENT OF ABNORMALITIES 535 out a leisurely analysis of the resistances, an analysis which is not content with the suggestive effacement of individual symptoms. Unfortunately it is impossible to give a detailed description of any such case. Considerations of space forbid, and it would be a mistake to let the reader imagine that he can learn to deal with the difficulties of analysis without arduous study. No more than an abstract of an analysis can ever be given, a brief account of the leading motifs and causes. The farther the student advances in his knowledge of the subject the less satisfied will he be with such crude epitomes. And yet, in such a book as this, an outline method of treatment was the sole possibility. For the analysand, too, a course of psychoanalytical treat- ment is not free from difficulty. He has to lay his innermost self bare, has to abandon impulsive activities that have been practised for months or years, has to overcome his instinctive dislike to the recanalisation of his desires, and has to seek new and unknown paths in life. It would be a mistake to suppose that psychoanalysis saves the analysand from moral struggles. On the contrary, it involves the struggle for difficult moral decisions. But is not this an advantage ? What has not been fought for, is worth little ; and man grows only by struggle. Were it not for effort, we should regress into child- hood. Freud has recently introduced an important new principle into analytical technique, and the matter has been elaborated by Ferenczi.1 The essential idea is to encourage the activity of the patient, apart from the psychoanalytical sittings. It is therefore spoken of as " active analysis." The analysand has to impose upon himself certain renunciations, has to enter into situations that are distasteful to him, in order to call up the manifestations of the unconscious. Thus, what we are con- cerned with is not the replacement of analysis by heterosugges- tion or autosuggestion. The aim is to strengthen the subject's interest in a speedy cure and in the calling up of ideas which will be useful in the analysis. We can never say at the outset how long an analysis will require. A symptom that seems trifling may be the expression of some grave psychical entanglement, and on the other hand ' Ferenczi, Weitere Ausbau der " aktiven Analyse," " Internationale Zeitschrift fur Psychoanalyse," vol. vij, 1921, pp. 233-251. 536 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS an ominous and extremely distressing symptom may be quite easy to relieve. We should be unwise to give any promise as to duration. It may happen that a paralysis or an anxiety state can be cured in a few minutes. Sometimes we have to go on working for months or years. (A) Peculiarities of Analysis in Children. The analysis of children involves special difficulties for the analyst, and therefore makes an exceptional claim upon his skill. Dr. Hug-Hellmuth points out that the child does not come to the analyst on its own initiative, but under orders from the parents. In most cases, the analysis is not undertaken until all other means have failed. Generally, moreover, the child has no interest in a cure, for its anomalies give it a sense of self-importance ; it is apt to have a definite liking for out- bursts of temper and punishment ; and it is all too ready to adapt itself to its morbid state.1 But there are additional difficulties. Children find it hard to fix their attention, and yet the analyst has to avoid being imperative and must never arouse a sense of boredom. We have to cajole our little patients, and to elicit associations unawares, as if we were playing a game. We talk of other children which have had similar symptoms, and watch how the analysand reacts. Here is a fine example given by Dr. Hug-Hellmuth : " A seven-year-old boy was suffering from obstinate insomnia, convulsive laughter, and twitchings-symptoms which aroused the suspicion that he had seen his parents in the act of sexual intercourse. During the day-time he was quite apathetic, lying on the carpet for hours in silence and without playing. He ate plenty, but without relish or any niceness in the choice of food, and he had suddenly lost the fondness for caresses which had previously characterised him. In the analysis he listlessly watched me for the whole of the first sitting as I played with his toys, seldom answering anything I said, so that it was difficult to decide whether he marked my words at all. At one of the early sittings I spoke of a little boy who could not sleep at night, and who made such a noise that he kept his parents awake ; little Rudi made a noise at midday too when Father wanted to sleep ; then Father got angry and 1 Hermine Hug-Hellmuth, Zur Technik der Kinderanalyse, " Inter- nationale Zeitschrift fiir Psychoanalyse," vol. vii, 1921, p. 179 et seq. TREATMENT OF ABNORMALITIES 537 smacked Rudi. (Reaction : little Hans runs to the sideboard, takes down a ' Krampus '1 armed with a whip, and strikes me on the arm, saying, ' You are naughty ! ') Then Rudi does not like Father ; he would be glad if Father were not there. (Reaction : ' Papa has gone to the war.' Hans' father, an officer of high rank, was actually at the front throughout the war, but had recently been at home in Vienna on short leave.- Suddenly Hans picked up a little cannon that was among his toys, and said, ' Puff, puff ! ') " Next day the death wish against the father was more plainly disclosed. Hans played with a toy motor car, and several times he had the chauffeur run over, just after I had referred to this chauffeur as little Rudi's father. I pretended to telephone to Rudi about the accident to his father ; I made Rudi cry, saying that the youngster would often have been glad if his father, who was so strict, had been away ; but Rudi was really very fond of his father, and that was why he was crying now. Little Hans' reaction was characteristic. He was lying on the ground as he listened to me, asking eagerly from time to time : ' What is little Rudi doing now ? ' Sud- denly he jumped up and ran out of the room. The next day, when at his request we played the same game, his final reaction was identical. The spontaneous running out of the room manifested clearly the working of his unconscious."2 Another difficulty is that a child is unable to understand theories of the unconscious. Educational considerations in- troduce additional complications. When the causes of the inhibitions are delicate matters, and it is essential to speak of these, the child is naturally more reserved than one might wish. We have to treat the child's sense of shame with great respect, and it is necessary to guard against directing attention too closely to forbidden topics. But there are compensating advantages. The child's powers of expression are incomparably plastic. In play, above all, the child exhibits creative faculties, and capacities for the depiction of character, which excel those of adults. Further- more, the child is not so engrossed in its own symptoms as the * Krampus = Ruprechtsknecht, i.e. a little demon, who serves St. Nicholas and is a bogey-man to carry off naughty children. An image of this demon, filled with sweets, is given as a present on the feast of St. Nicholas which inaugurates the Christmas season.-Translators' Note. » Op. cit., p. 187. 538 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS adult, and more readily enters new paths. The morbific experiences and fantasies do not constitute so lengthy a series in the child as in the adult. The child has an extraordinarily subtle power of instinctively appreciating mental relationships. The transference occurs very readily-though this is not always an advantage. Children are glad to follow a lead ; by nature they are endowed with a confiding disposition, which can readily be revived even when the child's advances have been repelled by the parents. Great as the difficulties are, they can usually be overcome. The little aberrant can be led to realise that the extortion of marks of tenderness, and other kinds of morbid profiteering, are really bad business. The child comes to regard the analyst as an exemplar, and wants to please him. When circumstances permit and simpler methods of treat- ment do not suffice, psychoanalysis should be used in the troubles of childhood. If it is enough to revise the previous educational methods (though such revision will often be im- possible without a psychoanalytical investigation), or if simple suggestions do all that is necessary, we may be content. But in more difficult cases the aid of an expert psychoanalyst should be invoked, and where children are concerned it is often advantageous that the analyst should be a woman. In physical orthopaedics, it is easier to correct a deformity when the child is young. Similar considerations apply to the aberrations of the love sentiment. If we can spare a child sufferings and errors that will give the character an unfortunate twist, it is our duty to do so. (») Psychoanalysis in conjunction with other educational Methods. A question that is disputed as regards the analysis of adults, answers itself as regards children. Is psychoanalysis to be supplemented by other methods, and especially by such as have a bearing upon the conduct of practical life ? Adults are often competent to choose the right course for themselves, when once they have been freed from inhibitions. But chil- dren, since they lack this competence, need direct guidance. Here suggestion has its uses. What is to be its relationship to the analysis ; what, in general, is to be the relationship of active educational measures towards the psychoanalytical factor ? TREATMENT OF ABNORMALITIES 539 The aim of the analysis is precisely this, that the pupil should be enabled to make the most of the influences of normal education. But we find that analytical experience brings about many modifications in our opinion concerning the aims approved by traditional pedagogy, and that it involves our taking a different and far more serious view of the familiar demand that due regard must be paid to individual talent. We have learned that a pedagogy which ignores repressions will be apt to lead us astray. It may be admitted that good education, paving the way as it does for the formation of views and the performance of functions that bring happiness and are morally estimable, tends to prevent repressions ; and that the rational choice of occupation is an excellent prophylactic (though by no means a complete prophylactic) against neuroses and aberrations. Every branch of instruction can play a use- ful part. In so far as it brings satisfaction to the child, promotes the pupil's self-respect, and stimulates the creative impulse, it will be a safeguard. But the instruction must be permeated with love. In especial, well-planned history lessons, lively and inspiriting moral instruction, and religious teaching that is sympathetically imparted in a way favourable to thought and feeling and activity, will all favour the satisfactory manage- ment of the mental powers. I must add, however, that psycho- analytical study, throwing new light upon the child's mind, has made us realise that the aforesaid disciplines must diverge considerably from the traditional types. Much might be said concerning the dangers inherent in the educational methods that still dominate our schools and our churches, but this important topic cannot be discussed here. While the analysis is in progress, the pupil should have suitable occupation. Idleness is not merely the mother of vice, but is the starting-point of many neuroses. But we must avoid confounding idleness with reasonable repose and recreation. As long as a child's physical and moral health are in danger, cure must be the predominant aim, to which scholastic interests have to be subordinated. It would be unwise, when such serious matters are at stake, to impose arduous schoolwork, to make the pupil go through an examina- tion, or to insist upon his keeping level with his fellows. Let us not forget that a machine which is losing much of its energy in internal friction cannot turn out a normal amount of work. 540 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS The analysis itself is a considerable tax upon the powers. On the other hand, it would be a mistake to give the analysand too easy a time, for that might tend to arouse an inclination towards the continual enjoyment of the luxury of ill-health. In general it is much better for the psychoanalyst to avoid playing the schoolmaster as well. I have already said that parents should not act as private tutors to their own children, for this tends to introduce school troubles into the home ; and I have explained that the home should represent the world of liberty and joy, in contrast to the uncongenial strictness of the school. Similar considerations apply to the work of the analyst. None but a very exceptional teacher, who knows how to win the love of the pupil and is thus competent to manage the transference satisfactorily, may be able on occasion to function as analyst as well. But one who fulfils this double role must be free on the scholastic side, and must not be com- pelled to pursue any specified course of instruction. Only in the case of exceptionally gifted pupils can we expect of a professional analyst, treating quite a number of analysands, that he will be able simultaneously to supervise their studies and to keep these pupils pretty much on a level with others.1 I have already discussed the use of suggestion in the form of an injunction to be well. Such suggestions do not touch the root of the trouble. But may they not be combined with analysis ? In certain cases, they may. Care must, however, be taken that we are not premature in replacing the auger of analysis by the hammer of suggestion. We have to relieve the patient of burdens, not to impose a new burden. A right conduct of the transference will supply what is needed in the way of constructive energy. What a child does out of love, does freely that is to say, is of far greater value than anything imposed by suggestion. All who practise suggestion agree in complaining that they have continually to reiterate their suggestions. Nothing of the kind is needed when we have recourse to psychoanalysis. The psychoanalytical method does far more to encourage the legitimate independence of the pupil. 1 In the autumn of 192 t there was inaugurated in Zurich, under State auspices, a home for neurotic children (Stephansburg), under the direction of an educationist trained in the practice of psychoanalysis. Dr. Hans Maier, the alienist, is finally responsible for the care of the inmates. TREATMENT OF ABNORMALITIES 541 Moreover, if we get off the horse of analysis and mount the horse of suggestion, the former is very likely to run away. Hypnosis and suggestion increase the resistance to further analytical investigation. For this reason, we must avoid beginning the use of suggestion too soon. In the case of the feeble-minded, and when time and opportunity for analysis are lacking, even the psychoanalyst will be compelled to have recourse to suggestion, and will then have an excellent oppor- tunity of comparing the efficacy of the respective methods. I have not yet made the acquaintance of any genuine psycho- analyst who has returned to the use of mere suggestion. Nor do I know any practitioner of suggestion who has continued to give the preference to that method after he has become familiar with psychoanalysis. Experience is the best teacher. (k) Successes and Limitations. Thanks in the first place to its scientific attractions, and in the second place to its practical successes, the psychoanalytical movement is steadily advancing, and has secured a large number of highly distinguished adherents.1 No adversary of psychoanalysis can deny that the psychoanalysts have cured large numbers of neurotics, who had been left to their own devices after the complete failure of the best efforts of those practising on old lines. When we remember with what venom the advocates of the Freudian doctrine have been attacked and in many places are still being attacked to-day, when we ' Among university professors I may mention : the psychiatrists Bleuler and Maier in Zurich (the neurologist Monakoff is in close touch with psycho- analytical views) ; von Speyr in Berne ; Putnam in Boston f ; Ernest J ones in Toronto (now a neurologist in London) ; Adolf Meyer in Baltimore; August Hoch in New York ; Davidson in Toronto ; White in Washington ; Delgado in Lima; Ferenczi in Budapest; Jelgersmaa in Leyden; K. H. Bouman in Amsterdam ; Dupr6 in Paris ; to some extent Sante de Sanctis in Rome ; also the psychologists and pedagogues Ernst DQrr in Berne f Hiberlin in Berne; Theodor Flournoy f, Edouard Clapar&de, and Pierre Bovet, in Geneva ; Ernst Schneider in Riga ; Flugel in London : the philo- sopher Walter Frost in Riga. Remarkable is the admission of Professor Oswald Bumke, the psychiatrist, who is a vigorous opponent of psychoanalysis : " The enormous success of the Freudian School-for no one can deny that its success has been enormdus-has only been rendered possible by the fact that official science was out of touch with reality, that it knew so little of actual mental experiences, and that it offered stones instead of bread to those who were genuinely anxious to learn something about the psyche " (" Klinische Wochenschrift," vol. i, 1922, p. 202). It must be bitter for the psychologists that such things can be said about them. Time will show whether Bumke will communicate to the world that which the psychologists have failed to communicate I 542 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS recall the detestable suspicions that were voiced against them and the attempts that were made to deprive them of an oppor- tunity of earning a livelihood, it will be obvious that the new investigatory and curative method must be animated with immense energy to make its way in the face of so much oppo- sition. I wish to avoid exaggeration, and to allow the facts to speak for themselves. Freud has set us all an example by the modesty with which he has estimated the prospects of cure offered by the method he has introduced, and no one could have shown himself less inclined to appeal to the mob by trumpeting successes. But there can be no justification for concealing the benefits that have accrued from the sound use of psychoanalysis. Hun- dreds of aberrants whom the most careful application of traditional methods have failed to relieve, have been cured by psychoanalysis. Innumerable persons who were continually growing worse so long as their teachers and they themselves were equally unaware of the true causes of their troubles and aberrations, have been saved by the new method. Not only have they been freed from individual symptoms, but their whole mind has been liberated from restrictions and inhibi- tions. The ploughshare of psychoanalytical investigation has broken up the crust, opening furrows which have gladly welcomed the seed of active education. It would be superfluous to recapitulate the numerous cures to which reference has already been made in the present work. Nor shall I give any details regarding the large number of other persons whom I have known to be freed by psychoanalysis from mental and physical troubles during the last ten years or more. My first fears that these cures would prove tran- sitory were needless in the great majority of instances. No less important are the theoretical advantages of analy- tical research, no less fruitful has been the development to which psychoanalysis has led in psychology and educational science. To think only of the latter, let us recall Zulliger's testimony, that a knowledge of psychoanalysis constrained him to take an entirely new view of the educational work. Who can deny that an analytical supplement is of the greatest value in. educational activities. Not only does it enable us to understand better such troubles as have already arisen, but it TREATMENT OF ABNORMALITIES 543 also enables us to avert even graver perils. In former days, the early symptoms of morbid developments were commonly overlooked. No attention was paid to abnormalities in play, or to the beginnings of obsessions and irresistible impulses. The observer was content to study the foreground, he limited his attention to consciousness while ignoring the titanic forces of the unconscious. We begin to know better, now ; and without implying that consciousness is of no importance, we make due allowance for the activities of the unconscious as well. We reckon with the unconscious in order to make it the servant of the conscious. I am confident that as soon as fathers and mothers, teachers and the clergy, have grasped the importance of their new tasks, it will become apparent that the most valuable contributions of psychoanalysis are in the sphere not of medicine, but of education. Still, we must avoid exaggerated hopes. First of all, let me insist that it is extravagant to represent psychoanalysis as in itself an integral philosophy, as a substitute for religion, and so on. These assertions betray a lack of culture. The simpletons who made them are happily few, but they injure the good cause, and put weapons into the hands of our oppon- ents. Elsewhere I have myself explained my views as to the part analytical knowledge can contribute to the edifice of philosophy.1 Nor can psychoanalysis be regarded as a panacea for developmental errors. Infallible cures, that pretend to be universally applicable, invariably turn out to be quack remedies. There is no one method of treatment that will cure all patients suffering from tuberculosis ; there is no special way of dealing with cancer which will invariably secure the desired result. We may thankfully accept the most moderate advances in the therapeutic art, and even when some striking progress is made we shall do well to guard against pitching our hopes too high. Every competent person knows that psychoanalysis is one of these signal advances. But there are many cases to which the new method is not applicable. Let me briefly enumerate the most important conditions to which psychoanalysis is inapplicable, and those in which the prospects of success are scanty. 1 Zura Kampf um die Psychoanalyse, pp. 331-382. 544 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS Low mental capacity is one obstacle. Little children can- not give the analyst enough information regarding their mental state, and they are not in a position to understand the relation- ships that have to be considered. Nevertheless, skilled analysts can often deduce the hidden significance and the causes of an aberration from the study of symptoms, dreams, and the environment, even in cases where associations cannot be elicited. A few pages back (p. 536), I instanced a case in which a skilled observer was able to unlock the door of a child's unconscious. Psychoanalytical knowledge enables us to stop many of the openings through which the causes of additional disturbances would find their way ; it discloses, or at least puts us on the track of, the secret impulses that have been repressed ; it reveals the motive that leads a child to seek pleasure in illness or to be over-sedulous in the avoidance of discomfort ; it can put an end to the confusion between past and present ; can lead a child towards reality, and away from the illusion which lies at the core of every aberration ; can, in conformity with the laws of the transference, induce the re- placement of the penning up of love which has resulted from misdirection, by a healthy activity of the affections; and so on. For women teachers, in especial, there is open here a splendid field of educational endeavour, and it is eminently desirable that an increasing number of able, well-equipped, and thoroughly earnest women teachers should be trained as psychoanalytical experts-devoting two or three years to this study. As part of their training, they should themselves undergo analysis. But though the analysis of little children offers exceptional difficulties, it often gives extremely valuable results. The feeble-minded are yet more difficult to analyse than very young children. No doubt a shrewd analyst can, even in such cases, learn a good deal about the unconscious impulses, but it remains dubious whether these impulses can be modified in the way we desire. My own experience with the feeble- minded does not entitle me to give a definite opinion, but it would certainly be a mistake to expect great results in this quarter. Advanced age is another obstacle that deserves passing mention, though it hardly bears upon the present study. Freud used to consider that the capacity for being analysed TREATMENT OF ABNORMALITIES 545 did not last beyond the age of forty-five or thereabouts. But in the case of elderly women suffering from hysteria I have been able to practise psychoanalysis with curative results, although the analysis did not go very deep. I do not know whether the method is applicable to other forms of neurosis in elderly patients. Pending further information, I am sceptical as to the possibility. In old persons there are three main difficulties. First of all, the abundance of the material to be analysed is almost incredibly vast. Secondly, a glimpse at the seamy side of his own life may arouse such horror in the unfortunate analysand as to overwhelm him. Thirdly, there is a lack of the energy requisite for a refashioning of the life. It hardly seems worth while to make a fresh start for the few remaining years ! Important for our purposes, however, are certain mental or physical disorders which put difficulties in the way of psycho- analysis, and in certain circumstances may even make its use a dangerous matter. In epilepsy, hysterical complications can be analysed away, as I have myself seen. But the funda- mental disorder, the epilepsy proper, since it depends upon organic defects in the brain, cannot be cured by psychoanaly- sis. We should not forget, however, that medical men, even those with considerable experience, sometimes mistake hysteri- cal paroxysms for epilepsy. It must be left to the physician, to the neurological specialist, to decide whether an analysis should be undertaken in a case presumed to be epilepsy, and how far the analysis should be pushed if he advises that it should be begun. There is a whole group of mental disorders in which the possibilities of psychoanalysis are gravely restricted. The commonest of these is the so-called dementia praecox. This term, introduced by Kraepelin, has been responsible for a great many mistakes and for much needless anxiety. Literally, the Latin words mean " premature loss of the mental powers," but authorities class under this head numerous cases in which there is no dementia at all, for the patients' intelligence often remains uncommonly sharp and clear. Moreover, the disease does not necessarily make its first appearance in youth. Bleuler has therefore proposed to replace the alarming name of de- mentia praecox by that of schizophrenia for this group of patients. It is really difficult to write definitely as to the 546 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS characteristic features of the disease. Nor is it essential to our purpose. Certain leading traits could be mentioned readily enough, but the limits are hard to define. As a mere layman, I have been amazed to find that hundreds of cases will be classed by some alienists as dementia praecox or schizo- phrenia, while other alienists will exclude them from this category ; and I have been still more astonished to find that the most conflicting views prevail as to the nature of the dis- ease. In these circumstances we can readily understand that there are also wide divergences of opinion as to its curability. Many doctors flatly deny the curability of dementia praecox. Others contend that cure ensues, in a considerable percentage of cases, without any medical treatment. Many psycho- analysts are of opinion that in fortunate cases, when schizo- phrenia is in the early stage, analysis can effect a cure. Others believe that we have to do with an organic process upon which analysis can have no influence either for good or for ill. Yet others are of opinion that analytical probing into the depths of the unconscious may do harm in such cases. The educa- tionist may be well content to leave the solution of these riddles to the medical specialists. I have myself seen quite a number of young persons who had suffered for a considerable time from morbid detachment from the outer world and absorption into their own ego, and who were also affected with hallucinations, irresistible im- pulses, and anxieties of various kinds, but who, under the influence of psychoanalysis, were relieved of these troubles, and were enabled to lead a normal life as long as they remained under my observation. I saw other cases, however, in which all the symptoms had been relieved, and in which, after infinite misery, sunshine had been restored to the existence ; but then, after a few months of happiness, the trouble returned, and analysis was of no further avail. In yet other instances, the analysis was the starting-point of sterile self-ponderings ; no transference occurred ; and the morbid process seemed to be intensified. In th6se latter cases (they have not come within my personal experience), the analysis had to be promptly discontinued. For such patients, certainly, we shall have to depend upon other methods, but no one has ever claimed that psychoanalysis is a panacea. Persons who suffer from mental inhibitions and who axe in TREATMENT OF ABNORMALITIES 547 danger of neurosis or of mental disorder, should be urgently dissuaded from autoanalysis and from the study of psychiatric or of psychoanalytical writings. To the uninformed, the prospect of mental disorder and its incurability seems worse than death. But nothing could be more erroneous than such a view. We daily rub shoulders with people who, from the alienist's point of view, are suffering from incurable insanity. Yet they do good work, and they are often happy, for the time being at any rate. It is well known that even men of genius, even the greatest benefactors of humanity, have borne unmistakable signs of mental dis- order. It is not invariably a terrible thing to be out of one's mind. Some of the psychoses are far from being as grave a misfortune as widely diffused bodily troubles, which most people face without a shudder. The phrase, " Rather death than the lunatic asylum," is stamped with folly and injustice. It is a sign of gross ignorance to suppose that every one com- mitted to an asylum is marked with a social stigma. Many who were at one time insane can be regarded as models of health. It is not true that mental disorder is the most terrible thing that fate can bring us ; and I must repeat that incur- ability is not necessarily dreadful. Incurable invalids may for decades be well and feel well in the popular sense of this term ; and even if there should be an acute exacerbation of the illness, the patient may soon return to his normal condition of " health." Another error may be no less definitely refuted. When a patient has been under medical care for a long time, and at length becomes affected with mental disorder, people are apt to blame the doctor and the treatment for this development. Here is likewise a gross injustice. When a medical prac- titioner prolongs the life of a sufferer from lung disease for a few years, people are grateful to him, and no one thinks of hold- ing him and his methods accountable for the death when it ultimately ensues. But I have twice known instances in which a doctor who was an expert psychoanalyst has for several years been able to do much good to a patient by psy- choanalytical methods. In the end, however, the illness got the upper hand, and the patient committed suicide. There- upon a clamour was raised that the analysis had occasioned the death ! 548 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS In one of these instances, the patient had consulted me in the hope that psychoanalysis would relieve him of distressing symptoms. He frequently lost the sense of reality, would repeat the same words for hours in succession and was affected with a strong suicidal impulse. His memory was very defec- tive, and he felt it impossible to face an imminent examination. There was well-marked mental disorder, so that I felt I could not venture to undertake the case. An alienist had the neces- sary courage, and, after a lengthy analysis, relieved the symptoms completely, so that the young man passed his examination, was able (to my great astonishment) to carry on excellent scientific work for some years, and felt quite happy. Since his illness was regarded as incurable, neither I nor the medical analyst had any confidence in the durability of the relief, but of course I was delighted at the temporary success. In the end, the symptoms recurred, a further analysis proved impracticable, and eventually the man took his own life. What alienist has not had similar unfortunate experi- ences ? But in the public press, the opponents of psycho- analysis made much of the case, and ascribed the suicide to the analysis. In the other case the illness took the form of an irresistible impulse to autopsychoanalysis-just as in a religious environ- ment one with a tendency towards mental disorder may develop religious mania, and a similar patient in a political environment may give himself up to crazy political specula- tions. The medical adviser who attempted a regular psycho- analysis failed, just as any other method would have failed with this patient. When, subsequently, the unfortunate man committed suicide, he was supposed to be a victim of psycho- analysis, which was made the object of much unfavourable comment in the press. This was an unjust and typically ignorant confusion of temporal succession with causal succession. When a surgeon operates as a last chance in a case of advanced cancer, no one blames him if the patient dies immediately or shortly after the operation. Just as little is it right to overwhelm with abuse the analyst who makes a vain attempt to save a patient whose case he otherwise regards as hopeless. Nor is it reasonable to blame a method because a bad use is sometimes made of it. To-day anyone can call himself a TREATMENT OF ABNORMALITIES 549 psychoanalyst, and people who are quite ignorant of Freud's researches do actually give themselves this name. Un- scrupulous scoundrels even pretend to be equipped with analytical knowledge, and will practise disgraceful quackery and carry on unsavoury intrigues under shelter of the great name of Freud. Those who would analyse successfully, must not merely have made an exhaustive study at least of the main elements of the comprehensive and difficult psycho- analytical literature, but must have themselves been psycho- analysed. In addition, they must of course have considerable native sagacity and fine intuitions, and must above all be persons of sound moral character. In the case of children, it is necessary that the parents should approve of the psychoanalytical treatment, and it is desirable that they should actively support it. When they are antagonistic, and still more when they definitely oppose the analyst, the latter's task becomes difficult or impossible. Parents whose own mistakes are responsible for their children's aberrations are likely to disapprove of the analysis because their own errors and weaknesses will be brought to light. Often we have to look on with a heavy heart while foolish or uncon- scientious parents refuse to allow their child to be rescued, and even give it push after push on the downward path ; and we can derive little consolation from the fact that this is an old story. I regard it as desirable before beginning the analysis of a child to get definite assurances from the parents that until the analysis is finished they will not ask the child anything about the sittings, and that they will not make any important change in educational matters without the previous approval of the analyst. An analysis cannot be carried out unless the patient has a desire to get well. The preliminary steps must often be such as will awaken and strengthen this wholesome conation. We shall draw attention to the imminent dangers, depict the splendid prospects of a life passed in freedom and health, refer to the duty of making the best use of one's talents, and so on. Where the moral impulses are in abeyance, when the patient lusts after the advantages which the illness entails, and finds more pleasure in untruthfulness, cowardice, ease, and morbid enjoyment, than in a morally estimable transformation, the analyst has not much to expect. But behind an apparent 550 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS moral depravity there often exist excellent ethical conations, the depravity being merely a mask which has been assumed in defiance, mockery, eccentricity, or some other mood arising out of repression. An analysis may also encounter external hindrances. The analysand may live too far away from the analyst, or may be unable to spare the necessary time. We have seen that psychoanalysis is apt to make extensive claims upon the time, so that for this reason alone psychoanalysts, whether doctors or teachers, often find it necessary to have recourse to the older methods of suggestion. Despite these limitations, there remain vast possibilities of good open to curative psychoanalysis. It is obvious that the experience gained in curative education can be turned to account for prophylactic purposes. We arrive at a new education, which reaches out into the unconscious, and thus comes to the help of the traditional education, the education of the conscious, which has long been stagnant. The pedagogy of the future will unite both these trends, the education of the conscious and the education of the unconscious, to form an integral whole. CONCLUSION The more carefully we study the love sentiment in children the more amazed are we at the unsuspected multiplicity of its manifestations and at the unsuspected creative energy which it displays amid the wealth of forms. This imposing multiplicity, fashioned in the darkness of the unconscious, recalls the wonderworld of the deep sea. I hope that the readers of this book will have realised a little, at least, of these formative powers of the love sentiment, although it has been impossible for me to depict the intimate processes as they present themselves to the gaze of the psychoanalyst. We have also had a sufficient demonstration of the magni- tude and significance of love in the life of the child. A child's happiness is mainly dependent upon happiness in its loves- is dependent thereon to an incomparably greater extent than people believed in the days when they still knew nothing of the disguises and the remote effects of love. Moral dignity and efficiency, the sublimity and the purity of the child's moral, aesthetic, and religious fife, are likewise primarily de- pendent upon the culture of the love sentiment. We have seen that an overwhelming number of defects of character are the outcome of crampings of impulse, and we have realised that in these matters there are wide gradations of influence. The scale ranges from slight impulses towards evil, without any impairment of the freedom of the will, through strong urges concerning which we ask ourselves whether moral re- sistance will in the long run be competent to hold them in check, up to irresistible impulses in face of which the will is absolutely powerless. When we had to do with sick persons, we found abundant confirmation of that contention of Plato's which was worth all the rest of psychopathology before the days of Freud-the contention that the healing art is con- cerned with the conflict between love impulses, and that its main function is to reconcile these hostile elements in the 551 552 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS constitution and make them friends (supra p. 33). But we have had to go further, and to realise that the moral aberra- tions which are not usually regarded as within the province of the physician, are really aberrations of love. In this con- nexion we were compelled to contemplate love in its relation- ship with the mental life as a whole, and as an expression of the integral personality. It follows that the education of the love sentiment and education to love must constitute the kernel of all our educa- tional work. This rule, which is deducible from the funda- mental postulates of Christianity, has hitherto been almost entirely ignored by educational science. Alike in the home and in the school, sins against the precept are perpetual. School life, in particular, is wholly directed towards other aims. The miseries of an age which aspires towards a materialistic and intellectualistic goal are so crudely reflected in our present scholastic system that I should waste words were I to dwell upon the lamentable facts. It is, however, necessary to refer to a less familiar con- sideration. We say that the child is the father of the man, but the child is also the father of contemporary civilisation. It has been shown that not merely the development of a child's character, but also its doings, are intimately connected with the configuration of the love sentiment in childhood, and are most effectually influenced thereby. The forthcoming psychoanalytical social psychology will throw more light on these relationships. Already to-day we can declare with certainly that imperialism, the mercenary spirit, and war, are the inevitable products of repressions of love dating from the early years of childhood.1 We can also prove with no less certainty that an ethically adequate cultural and social de- velopment will only become possible when the science of educa- tion, which has hitherto disregarded the decisive phenomenon of repression, comes to pay due attention to the laws of the education of love elucidated by psychoanalysis, and to replace repression in accordance with the dictates of conventional morality, by control and sublimation. What we have to achieve is that statesmen and parliaments should no longer, with disastrous short-sightedness, consider material interest 1 Pfister, Zur Psychologic des Krieges und Friedens, " Wissen und Lebeu,'' I9U. CONCLUSION 553 to be the only criterion of action, but should devote themselves to matters of far greater importance-the nature of the human mind and its intrinsic need for love. " For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul ? " We have seen that this saying does not embody the utopian demand of an unpractical moralist, but that it is a law decisive as to existence or non-existence. No reasonable person thinks himself entitled to disregard the prescriptions of bodily hygiene. The day will come when people will have equal respect for the prescriptions of mental hygiene. It is in no one's interest to cultivate the preposterous errors in which the men of the present day are enmeshed because their repressions have so hopelessly crippled their mental faculties and their love senti- ments. Hitherto, the havoc this wrought has been inevitable, because the formative forces were still inscrutable. But in days to come, thanks to a metabiology, a higher science of life, which will realise that the loftiest ideal conations are just as necessary a part of life's functioning as the endeavour to con- solidate the material basis of existence, a more rational education towards a healthier and nobler conduct of life will become possible. Agreed that the psychoanalytical social psychology will also have to aim at realising the dictates of ethics; and for this end it will be essential, ever and again, to devote attention to the education of the love sentiment in children. The new factor, and the decisive factor, will be the avoid- ance of the imprisonment of love in the unconscious. I say specifically, the imprisonment of love, for it can never be our aim to do away with all repressions. This would be neither possible nor desirable, for, as we know, neither genius nor inspiration would exist without repression. To-day we see that thousands and millions of persons suffer because their love is too much pent up in the unconscious. Analytical curative pedagogy will come to our aid here. Let me illustrate the matter by a parable drawn from Babylonian mythology. Ishtar, the goddess of love, is compelled by bitter sorrow to descend into the underworld. The further she penetrates into this sinister realm, the more fully is she deprived of her ornaments by her dread sis _er Allatu, who rules in the land of the shades ; and her whole body, together with the face and 554 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS the region of the heart, breaks out in hideous sores. As long as she remains in the underworld, darkness reigns on earth and overcasts the heavens. Men and gods mourn the dis- tresses of their lot. The chief of the gods sends the strong Uddusunamir to set the goddess of love free, by conjuration with the divine name and by sprinkling with the water of life which flows forth in the underworld. Allatu is wroth at the message from on high, but has to obey it. Baptised with the water of life, Ishtar returns from the underworld, richly adorned once more, and heaven and earth celebrate her festival. In this mythological romance may we not discern the most salient characteristics of the analytical release of the mental powers ? Love has been repressed, and is wandering in the Hades of the unconscious, where it is deprived of its beauties and ravaged by disease. We note that Ishtar goes to the underworld, not as a punishment, but because of deep sorrow (her beloved has died). Repression and a persistent moral conflict are often the outcome of an unhappy fate, and not of any wrong that has been done. But now the misfortune has happened. That which by nature is freer than anything else, love, has been cast into prison, and is covered with sores. Are we not reminded of the multitude of those who, owing to the repression of love, are held captive by morbid defiance, brutal cruelty, anxiety, obsessions and irresistible impulses, bodily and mental malformations? Does not the imprisonment of Ishtar symbolise for us the innumerable inhibitions of thought, feeling, and will ? Does not darkness universally prevail when love is in chains ? God and humanity have ample occasion to bewail this enchainment as the most urgent among the sorrows of mankind and the most intense tragedy known to the world. But now the messenger is sent to set love free. Is not the analyst another such liberator ? Can there be a loftier aim than to free from its miseries, love which is the most sacred thing known to us ? To this end, the prisoner must be sought in the Hades of the unconscious, for such is the analyst's first task. Then he must make use of the divine energy, and must seek out the water of life which likewise wells up in the unconscious-let Allatu, the gloomy queen of the shades, resist to the uttermost. In plain terms, it is within our power to overcome the resistance, and by transference, CONCLUSION 555 but also by pointing to higher aims, to break the spell under which love languishes, so that in all its original beauty and power it may return to the upper world of consciousness and moral conation, conferring that joy which, as the Gospel assures us, reaches out beyond the finite into the world of the infinite. These activities are a reflection of the work which we associate with the life of the Saviour. 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Ethics. (Among numerous translations may be mentioned one by Andrew Boyle, Everyman's Library, Dent, London.) Spinoza, Benedictus de, Tractatus de Deo et Homine, ejusque felicitate.- German translation, Abhandlung von Gott, dem Menschen und dessen Gluck, being the eighteenth volume of J. H. von Kirchmann's Philo- sophische Bibliothek.-English translation, Spinoza's Short Treatise on God, Man, and Human Welfare, translated from the Dutch by Lydia Gillingham Robinson, Open Court Publishing Co., Chicago, 1909- Stadler, August, Philosophische Padagogik, "Neue Bahnen," Voigtlander, Leipzig, 1911. Staehelin, Rudolf, Huldreich Zwingli, sein Leben und Wirken, Basle, 1895. Stekel, Wilhelm, Onanie und Homosexualitat, 2nd edition, Vienna, 1921. Stern, William and Clara, Psychologic der friihen Kindheit, Leipzig, 1914.- English translation by A. Barwell, Psychology of Early Childhood, George Allen & Unwin, London, 1924. Starring, Gustav, Die Hebei der sittlichen Entwicklung der Jugend, Leipzig, 1911. Starring, Gustav, Psychologic des menschlichen Gefflhlslebens, Bonn, 1916. Sully, James, Outlines of Psychology, new edition, Longmans, London, 1892. Sully, James, Studies of Childhood, new edition, Longmans, London, 1903. Sully, James, The Teacher's Handbook of Psychology, 5th edition, Long- mans, London, 1909. 564 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS Teichmuller, Gustav, Neue Studien zur Geschichte der Begrifie, 3 Hefte, Gotha, 1876-79. TeichmUller, Gustav, Ueber das Wesen der Liebe, Leipzig, 1879. Ueber den Selbstmord, insbesondere Schuler-Selbstmord, Diskussionen des Weiner psychoanalytischen Vereins, i, Bergmann, Wiesbaden, 1910. Wellhausen, Julius, Die Israeli tisch-Jiidische Religion (Die Kultur der Gegenwart, edited by Paul Hinneberg, Part I, § 4, Die Christliche Religion, pp. 1-40), Teubner, Berlin and Leipzig, 1906. Wilhelm, Richard, Dschuang Dsi [Chuang Chou], das wahre Buch vom siidlichen Bliitenland, Jena, 1912. Wilhelm, Richard, Gespriche des Kungfutse [Confucius], Jena, 1914. " Wissen und Leben," Rascher, Zurich, 1914. Wundt, Wilhelm, Grundriss der Psychologic, 10th edition, Leipzig, 1911. English translation by C. H. Judd, from fourth German edition, Engelmann, Leipzig, 1902.-(Pfister quotes from the first German edition.) Wundt, Wilhelm, GrundzOge der physiologischen Psychologic, 6th edition, 3 vols., Leipzig, 1908-1911.-English translation from the fifth German edition by E. B. Titchener, Principles of Physiological Psychology, Swan Sonnenschein (now George Allen and Unwin), London, 1904, etc, Zulliger, Hans, Psychanlytische Erfahrungen aus der Volksgchulpraxis, in vol. v of Schriften zur Seelenkunde und Erziehungskunst, Bircher, Berne and Leipzig, 1921. INDEX Abel, 31, 37, 557 Abendstunden lines Einsiedlers, 109, 561 Abraham, 399, 434, 557 Abulia, 296 Academy, 32 Aceldama, 19 Ach, 89 Acquisitive Impulse, 345-347 Active Analysis, 535 Adamson, 560 Adler, 247, 324, 342, 343, 344, 463, 557 Aeusserungen infantil-erotischer Triebe im Spiels, 219, 561 A eusserungsformen des weiblichen Kastrationskomplexes, 434, 557 Affective Training, 465-467 After-Thought, 395 Aggressive Impulse, 343 Aim of Education, 449-453 Akhenaton, 25-28, 77 Alaric, 209 Alberus, see Erasmus Alberus Albrecht, 139 Alcoholism, 242, 293 Algolagnia, 291, 339, 479, and see respectively, Masochism & Sadism Allatu, 553, 554 Allotment of Energy to higher Functions, 299-303; see also Sublimation Also sprach Zarathustra, 64, 65, 66, 67, 52O, 560 Alternations of Love and Hate, 182- 185 A m Quell des Lebens, 167 Ambivalent Attitude, 279 Amenhotep IV, 25; see also Akhenaton Amenophis IV, 25; see also Akhenaton Amos, 30 Amour, L', 74, 560 Anabaptists, 327, 328 Anacreon, 22, 557 Anal Erotism, 338 Analysis, Active, 535 Analytische Untersuchungen Uber die Psychologic des Hasses und der VersShnung, 209, 561 Ancestor Worship, 97, 98 Ansichten und Erfahrungen, die Idee der Elementarbildung betreffend, in, 561 Anthropologic in pragmatischer Hin- sicht abgefasst, 49, 50, 559 Anthropologists on Love, 76 Antigone, y] Anxiety defined, 280 Derivation of Term, 287 floating Surplus of, 287 potential, 287 Aphorismen, 461, 560 Appearance and Reality, 294 Aquinas, 41, 46, 77 Aristotle, 35, 36, 37 Arrogance, 248 Art, its Appreciation and its Practice, 227-231 Asceticism, 290, 422, 479-480 Assimilation and Disassimilation, 348-352 Assimilative Neuroses, 455 Asthma, Analysis of a Case, 424-431 Atavism, 347 Aton, 25 Au vieil ivangile par un chemin nouveau, 561 Augustine, 41, 103, 557 Aus der Gcschichte einer infantile* Neurose, 427 Aussichten zu einer Experimentalsee- lenlehre, 81, 560 Autism, 325 Autoerotism, 339 Automatism as the Expression of the unconscious Will, 295-296 Autopsychoanalysis, 547, 548 Autosuggestion, 504, 510, 535 Awakening of Love, 21 Bacon, 43-44 Barwell, 563 Basil, 103 Bathing, mixed, 403, 403 BaumA, 511 565 566 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS Beethoven, 292, 343 Behandlung schtver erziehbarer und abnormer Kinder, 143, 184, 214, 233. 358, 486, 492, 561 Benjamin, 395 Bergsteigen, 386 Bernard of Clairvaux, 42 *' Berner Seminarblatter," 224, 343, 561 Beyond Good and Evil, 560 Beyond the Pleasure Principle, 558 Bible, 293, 439 Biblische Theologie des alien Testa- ments 30, 559 Black Dog, 274, 275 Bleuler, 83, 325, 506, 541, 545, 557 Bloch, 76 Blumenthal, 559 Boehme, 43 Bdhlimann, 169, 357 Bonivard, 258 Book of the Soul, 123 Booth, 558 Bouillaud, 51 i, 519 Bouman, 541 Bovet, 277, 541, 557, 561 Bowring, 23, 563 Boyle, 563 Brahn, 62, 114, 557, 560 Braut von Messina, 23, 563 Breaking a Child's Will, 469 Breaking away from the Analyst, 534 Breaking away from the Parents, 388-392, 393 Brentano, 73 Bride of Messina, 23, 227-230 Brief Uber Aufenthalt in Stans, no, 56x Brill, 558 Brother-and-Sister-Substitutes, 212 Brown, 562 Buddha, 28, 77 Buddha, 28, 560 Buddhismus, 28, 559 Bulimia, 276, 342, 343 Bumke, 541 Busby, ioo, 202 Busch, 288, 294, 450, 465, 478 Calvin, 104, 258 Captivity, The, 30 Caressive Impulse, 213, 216, 217 Carlyle, 159, 161 Castration Anxiety, 359, 362, 372, 432-434. 445 Castration Complex in Women, 434, 445 Castration Fantasy, 352, 386, 445 Castration, the Term defined, 445 Threat of, 362,432-434, 445 Categorical Imperative, see Impera- tive Catholicism (Roman), 158, 159, 161, 162, 233-234, 328 Centrifugal Natures, 268 Centripetal Natures, 268 Champollion, 82 Cheerfulness, 471-472 Child's Love for its own Body, 238- 242 Mind, 242-244 Chilion, 258 Chinese, 97-98, 101 Chou, see Chuang Chou Christianity, 21, 38, 39, 46, 65, 68, 69, 70, 344 Christians, Early, 77, 103 Christliche Religion, 564 Chrysostome, 103 Chuang Chou, 29 Cinderella Types, 395 113, 114, 541, 557 Clara d'ElUbeuse, 441 Climbing Pole as Cause of sexual Excitement, 409 Coeducation, 484 Comenius, 105, 490, 557 Comenius' School of Infancy, 557 Complex, Term defined and criticised, 518 Concealing Memory, 272 Conclusion, 551-555 Condensation, 321, 506 Confessions, 41, 103, 557 Confidential Talks, 480-481 Conflicting Influences of Love and Hate, 186-192 Confucius, 28-29, 97, 98, 450 Conscience, Pangs of, 416-422 Control versus Repression, 244, 277, 316-317. 353. 464. 527-530. 552 Coprophilia, 407 Corinthians, 39, 40 Corporal Punishment, 401-410, 476- 477 Coupland, 559 Covenant Book, 100 Creative Impulse, 333, 345-347 Creative Unconscious, see Uncon- scious Crime as Outcome of unhappy Love, 236 Criminality, 495, 496 Cryptography, 532 Cryptolalia, 532 Darwin, 344 Davidson, 541 Day-Dreams, 222 De rudibus catechizandis, 103, 557 Deji vu, see Pseudo-Reminiscence INDEX 567 Delgado, 541 Delight in Inflicting Pain, 298-299; see also Sadism Delight in Suffering, 290-291; see also Masochism Delusion of Grandeur, see Megalo- mania Dementia praecox, see Schizophrenia Demeter, 87 Demons, Psychology of Belief in, 205 Demosthenes, 343 Descartes, 44, 46, 70, 77 Desire and Aversion, 348-352 Desublimation, 303-304 Deuteronomy, 100 Dialogues of Plato, 32, 562 Diotima, 35 Disassimilation, 348-352, 456 Discipline and Freedom, 473-475 Dislike both in the Conscious and in the Unconscious, 142-163, 201- 207 Dislike for Meat, symbolic, 402-403 Dislike predominant in the Conscious and Love predominant in the Unconscious, 163-173 Dispositions, 314, 323 Dissociation of Consciousness, 147, 249-253. 336 Distortion, 320-321 Doctor-and-Patient Game, 215, 231, 435 Don Juanism, 75, 243, 307, 380 Dostoevski, 190, 499 Dowden, 23, 558 Dream Formation, Laws of, 367-368 Dream of a ridiculous Man, 190 Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie, 338, 34°. 558 Dschuang Dsi [Chuang Chou], 29, 564 Duboc, 74-75, 557 Dubois, 506, 507, 508, 557 Dupr&, 541 Diirer Society, 167 DURR, 73, 541, 557 Dysmenorrhoea, 377 Ebbinghaus, 73, 558 Ebner-Eschenbach, 214 Ecclesiasticus, 101 Echnaton, 25 ; see also Akhenaton Echnaton, 25, 561 Eckhart, 42 Edison, 51 i, 519 Education, Aim of, 449-453 Education and Over-Education, 460- 462 Education of the social Instinct, 484 Educational Writings of John Locke, 560 Ego Complex, 355 Egypt, 25, 26 Einfiihrung in die P&dagogih, 557 Einstein, 51i Eisler, 37, 41, 44, 558 Ekkehard, 198, 199, 519 Eldest Child, 394 Electra Complex, 174, 181-182 Elevation, 529 Elizabeth of Hungary, 42, 104 Elsenhans, 73 Emile, or Education, 108, 562 Emile ou de I'education, 562 Enlightenment, 96 sexual, see Sexual Enlightenment Entwicklung des Apostels Paulus, 39, 249. 561 Entwurf ernes Systems der Sittenlehre, 53. 54 Environment versus Heredity, 329- 330. 34° Erasmus Alberus, 104 Erigena, 41 Ernst, 471, 483, 558 Ernst Durr's Stellung tur Psych- analyse, 7$, 561 Erogenic Zones, 338 Eros, 32, 33, 37, 65 Erziehung bei den Naturvolkern, 96, 559 Erziehung und Erzieher, 114, 560 Erziehung und Unterricht, 560 Esau, 395 Eschenbach, see Ebner-Eschen- BACH Essais de Theodicte sur la bonti de Dieu, la liberty de I'homme, et I'origine du mal, 46, 560 Essay concerning human Under- standing, 46, 560 Essays in applied Psychoanalysis, 559 Ethics, 44, 45, 46, 563 Ethnologists on Love, 76 Eucken, 159, 161 Euphrates, 25 Evangelische Padagogik, 112, 560 Excess or deficiency of intellectual Activity, 269-271 Exhibitionism, 165, 166, 256, 339, 43&-437 Exodus, 100 Experimental Pedagogy and the Psychology of the Child, 557 Expressionism, 321 Expressionism in Art, its psychological and biological Basis, 562 Ezekiel, 30 Ezra, 32 Faculty Psychology, see Psychology Failure of contemporary Pedagogy, 488-491 568 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS Fain, 125, 194 Falckenberg, 44, 558 False Recognition, 320, 323 Family Fixation, 355 Family Romance, 176, 354 Fanaticism, 249 Father of the Poor, 261 Father-Substitute, see Parent-Sub- stitutes Faun, 125, 194 Faust, 229 Faust, 85, 501 Favourite Child, 395 Feeble-minded, 541, 544 Ferenczi, 92, 535, 541, 558 Fighting Instinct, 277, 557 Finality, 514 Florenz, 98, 558 Flournoy, 541 Flugel, 541 Foch, 21i Foerster, 114, 115, 422, 451, 459. 474. 477. 479. 480, 483, 558 Fdhn, 177, 179, 408 Forel, 76 Formative Influences where there is no Repression, 313 Forty-and-Twenty Instances of filial Affection, 97, 98 Foxley, 108, 562 Francis of Assisi, 42 Francke, 106 Freedom and Discipline, 473-475 Freud, 32, 35,36, 79, 82, 83, 84, 87, 88, 90, 92, 94, 120, 137, 165, 171, 174. »75. 176. 179. 181, 214, 253, 272, 281, 287, 292, 293, 294, 299, 300, 311, 314, 317, 320, 321, 323, 324. 337. 338, 339. 340, 34i. 344- 347. 350, 354. 368, 387, 390, 400, 401, 423, 424, 427, 428, 443, 466, 482, 507. 512. 513. 514. 517. 522, 523. 524. 525. 534. 535. 542. 544. 549, 551. 558 Freud's Discovery of Psychoanalysis, 82-84 Freuds Libidotheorie verglichen mil der Eroslehre Platos, 32, 560 Freund, 150, 558 Freund Heim, 350 Freytag, 258 Friend-Substitutes, 225 Frights, 415-416 Frbmmigkeit des Grafen Ludwig von Zinzendorf, 43, 106, 561 Frost, 541 Furtmuller, 342, 557 Fussy Activity, 298 F. W. Foerster-ein Psychanalytikcr ? 275. 479. 5$X Garnett, 190 Genealogy of Morals, 560 General Significance of Heredity, 3.29-330 Geschichte dev Christlichen Religions- philosophic, 52, 562 Geschichte der Erziehung, 96, 563 Geschichte der iraelitischen Religion, 30 Geschichte der neueren Philosophic, 44. 558 Geschwister, 194 Gesenius, 31, 558 Gesprache des Kungfutse, 29, 97, 564 Gethsemene, 28 Gluck, 557 Godet, 562 Goethe, 23, 177, 199, 21 x, 229, 461, 471, 501, 502, 558 Golgotha, 19, 68 Good Humour and Cheerfulness, 471-472 Grandeur, Delusion of, see Mega- lomania Greeks, 99-100 Green, 561 Gregory of Nazanzius, 103 Greig, 557 Grundlinien einer Kritik der bisherigen Sittenlehre, 49, 53, 563 Grundriss der Psychologic, 72, 504, 564 Grundzilge der Psychologic, 73, 558 Grundzilge der physiologischen Psycho- logic, 772, 564 Gruninger, 323, 558 Gschwind, 562 Haberlin, 57, 58, X15, 116, 179, 300, 348, 449. 450, 466, 479, 490, 541, 559 Habs, 46 Hades, 87, 177, 554 Hagenbeck, 497 Haldane, 563 Hall, 113 Hamilton, 560 Hamlet, 305, 306 Hamlet Attachment, 186-192, 288, 289, 378, 388 Harpers, Prince of, 461 Hartenstein, 46 Hartmann, 22, 55-59, 559 Hase, 472, 559 Hastic, 562 Hate and Hatred, see Dislike Hauri, 422 Hebei der sittlichen Entwicklung der Jugend, 107, 114, 563 Hebriisches und aramdischcs Hand- wdrtcrbuch, 31, 558 INDEX 569 Hector, 99 Hegel, 57, 77 Heilen und Bilden, 342, 343, 537 Heine, 289 Hellmuth, see Hug-Hellmuth Heraclitus, 70 Herbart, 54, 91, 112, 113, 324, 450, 488, 523, 559 Heredity versus Environment, 329- 330, 340 Heresy Hunters, 246 Hesse, 420 Heterosuggestion, 504, 535 Higher Feelings, 291-294 Hindenburg, 21 i Hinneberg, 564 History of the Christian Church, 559 History of the Christian Philosophy of Religion from the Reformation to Kant, 562 Hoch, 541 HOffding, 73 Holland, 561 HOfler, 73 Holman, 557 Homer, 99, 559 Homosexuality, 36, 99, 432-434, 436, 484 Hosea, 30 How Gertrude teaches her Children, 561 Hubback, 558 Hug-Hellmuth, 92, 394, 536, 559 Hugendubel, see Majer-Hugen- DUBEL Huldreich Zwingli, sein Leben und Wirken, 104, 563 Humboldt, 484 Hygiene, mental, 553 Hymn to A ton, 25-27 Hypnosis, 504, 505, 532, 541 Hysterie und Mystik bei Margarete Ebner, 42 Ibsen, 77 Iliad, 99, 559 " Imago," 39, 219, 246, 249, 394, 559, 561 Imperative, categorical, 115, 133, 134, 240. 393. 418 Impulse, 299, 330, 523 Control of, 527-530 Impulses, Classification of, 330-333 ; for particular Impulses see Self- Preservation, Species-Preserva- tion, Creative, Sexual, Social, etc. In der Vernunft begrUndeten Prinzipien der Natur und der Gnade, 46, 560 Incest Barrier, 340 Individuality, 451 Individuational Impulses, 333-345 Inferiority Complex, 183, 186, 190, 203, 215, 233, 240, 241, 248, 252, 267, 307, 342, 343, 344, 35i. 434. 463. 4<58 Influence of Brothers and Sisters, 392-396 Influence of other Persons than the Parents, 392-399 Influence of the Parents, 348-392 Insanity, Autism an essential Char- acteristic of, 325 Inspectionism, 124, 127, 160, 178, 179, 180, 183, 184, 231, 238, 302, 339. 342, 343. 383. 406, 412, 414, 436-437 Instinct combatif, 277, 557 " Internationale Zeitschrift fur arzt- liche Psychoanalyse," 32, 73, 335. 535. 536, 557. 558, 559. 560, 561, 562 Interpretation of Dreams, 558 Interpretation, defined, 514 Interrelations of the Impulses, 330- 333 Introductory Lectures on Psycho- analysis, go, 558 Introversion, 268-269, 325, 381, 414, 456 Inzest-Motiv in Sage und Dichtung, 126, 175, 387, 562 Iron Maiden, 257 Irresistible Impulses, 304-306 Isaac, 395, 455 Isaiah, 30 Ishtar, 553, 554 Isolation, its Dangers, 341 Israel, see Jews Israelitisch-Jildische Religion, 30, 564 Itzig, 258, 259 Jacob, 395, 455 " Jahrbuch fiir psychoanalytische Forschungen," 218, 441, 559, 561 " Jahreszeitschrift fiir Psycho- analyse," 150, 558 Jakob Boehme, 43, 559 James, 73, 82, 424, 524, 559 Jammes, 441 Japaner, 98, 560 Japanese, 98 Jehovah, 29, 30 Jelgersmaa, 541 Jelliffe, 557 Jenseits des Lustprinzips, 36, 171, 522, 558 Jenseits von Gut und Bose, 22, 62, 65, 66, 338, 560 Jeremiah, 30, 456 Jeremiah, 30 570 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS Jerusalem, 73 Jesuits, 105 Jesus, 27, 32, 38, 42, 48, 49, 64, 68, 69, 77, 101-102, 106, 190, 244, 256, 261, 285, 302, 388, 389, 393. 419, 443. 452. 458, 462, 476, 479. 483. 503. 530 Jews, 29-32, 100, 101 Jodl, 73 Johannine Writings, 72, 101, 102- i°3 John, First Epistle General oj, 40, 146, 286 John the Baptist, 244, 407, 511 Jonah, 31 Jonah, 31 Jones, Ernest, 387, 541, 558, 559 Jones, E. G. C., 560 Joseph's Dream, 171, 368 Joseph, Story of, 395 Josiah, ioo Jowett, 32, 34, 562 Judd, 564 Jugendlehve, 115, 479, 558 Jung, C. G., 199. 324. 44°. 441. 559 Jung, Ewald, 217 Kant, 46-50, 53, 59, 70, 77, 115, 134, 300, 393. 450. 45i. 452, 559 Kautzsch, 30, 31, 559 Kehrbach, 48, 559 Keller, 327 Kemp, 563 Kielholz, 43, 559 Kierkegaard, 159, 161 Kind wird geschlagen, 150, 558 Kinderspiel als Friihsymptom kvank- hajter Entwicklung, 220, 239 King Oedipus, 177 Kirchengeschichte, 472, 559 Kirchmann, 45, 559, 563 Kirchner, 73 Kissing, 441, 442, 466 Kleine Schrijten zur Keurosenlehre, 253, 427. 443. 558 Kleist, 468 Kleptomania, 233-237 Klinische Beitrage zur Psychoanalyse, 399, 557 " Klinische Wochenschrift,'' 541 Knabenhans, 96, 97, 559 Koffka, 89 Konfirmandenstunde uber den sieben- ten Gebot, 422 Korrodi, 461 Kraepelin, 545 Krampus, 537 Krebsbilchlein, 109, 563 Kritik der praktischen Vernunft, 48, 5°. 559 Kropotkin, 344 Kruger, 8i, 559 Kryptolalie, Kryptographie und un- bewusstes Vexierbild bei Nor- malen, 218, 561 Kullur dev Gegenwart, 30, 564 Kungfutse, 29, 97; see also Con- fucius Kurzgefasste Abhandlung von Gott, dem Menschen und dessen Glilck- seligkeit, 45, 563 Kussmaul, 113 L'amour, 74, 560 Lack of Will-Power, 296-298 Lagerlof, 261 Lamentations of Jeremiah, 475 Lang, 99, 559 Lao-Tse, 29 Lapse into lower Functions, 303- 304 ; see also Desublimation Lavoisier, 51 i Lazarus, 32, 73 Leaf, 99, 559 Lebon, 511 Lehmann, Edward, 28, 559 Lehmann, Rudolf, 114, 560 Leibnitz, 46, 47, 70, 77, 560 Leit/aden turn Studium dev Dog- mengeschichte, 41, 560 Levy, 360 Lhotzky, 393, 449, 458, 560 Libido, 324 Lichtenberg, 460, 560 Liebe des Kindes und ihre Fehlent- wicklungen, 561 Like and Dislike for Animals, 213- 216 Like and Dislike for inanimate Objects, 217-218 Like and Dislike for Nature, Land- scape and Native Land, 216-217 Lind, 557 Living Corpse, 246, 277 Lobisch, 113 Locke, 46, 77, 107-108, 560 Lockwood, 23, 563 Logos, 300 Lombroso, 496 Loofs, 41, 560 Loveley, 290 Lot's Wife, 257 Lotze, 55, 560 Louch,557 Love at first Sight, 397 Love both in the Conscious and in the Unconscious, 193-200 Love, defined, 24, 77-78 Love, History of the Problem, 24-76 Love predominant in the Conscious and Hatred predominant in the Unconscious, 128-141 INDEX 571 Love predominant in the Conscious and in the Unconscious, 121-128 Love predominant in the Uncon- scious, 207-209 Love reciprocates Love, 470-471 Low, 562 Lucinde, 50, 53 Luke, 38, 388 Luther, 54, 104, 387 Macbeth, Lady, 235, 236, 277, 381 Maeder, 224, 560 Maier, 540, 541 Maier-Hugendubel, 98, 560 Malan, 561 Malassociation, 533 Management of newborn Infant, 464- 465 Mann, 561 Maria Stuart, 374 Mark, 38, 102, 388 Marriage and the Sex Problem, 558 Marti, 30 Masochism, 42, 146, 151, 213, 290- 291, 299, 339, 352, 361, 378, 379. 380, 381, 401-410, 418, 442, 479 Masturbation, 215, 278, 279, 301, 306, 323, 338, 359, 362, 373, 374. 375. 383. 384. 402, 404, 408, 409, 410, 421, 437-440, 479, 483 Masturbation, larval, 375 Matthew, 38, 68, 102, 244, 388, 443 Maxims, 22, 559 May, 226 Mayer, 51 i Meat, Dislike for, symbolic, 402, 403 Megalomania, 396, 469 Meine Nachforschungen Uber den Gang der Natur in der Entwick- lung des Menschengeschlechts, 112, 561 Memory, 272 Memory Trace, 314 Mephistopheles, 85, 204, 229 Metabiology, 515, 553 Metaphysik der Sitten, 46, 559 Metapsychology, 88 Meyer, Adolf, 541 Meyer, K. F., 278 Meyers, 99 Michelangelo, 292 Michelet, 74, 560 Microcosmus, 560 Middle Ages, 104 Middle Child, 394 Mikrokosmus, 55, 560 Mill, 450 Mind of the Child, 113, 562 Miserliness, 233 Mixed Bathing, 403, 405 Moderating Influence of Psycho- analysis, 527 MoliSre, 288 Monakoff, 541 Money as Substitute for Love, 233 Monica, 103 Montaigne, 105 Moodiness, 289-290 Moral Torture, 410-415 Moritz, 81, 560 Moses, 29, 343 Mother-Substitute, see Parent-Sub- stitutes Moulding of Love in Children where Repression is at Work, 313-328 Mountain Climbing, symbolic, 386 Mugge, 562 Munsterberg, 73 Munzinger, 98, 560 Music, Appreciation of, 229-230 Mutterschule, 105, 557 Mutual Aid, 344 Myers, 559 Mysticism and Mystics, 20, 21, 42- 43, 77, 268, 452 Nail-Biting, 362 Nachmansohn, 32, 560 Napoleon, 21 i Narcissism, 238-242, 339, 350, 392, 456 Narcissus, 339 Natorp, 73, 484 Netoshka Nesvanova, 499 Neue Schweiz, 562 Neue Studien zur Geschichte dev Begriffe, 35, 36, 37, 564 " Neue Ziircher Zeitung," 461 Neuer Zugang zum alien Evangelism, 354. 388, 508, 561 Neurologists on Love, 76 Neurotic Constitution, 557 Newborn Infant, 464-465 Nietzsche, 22, 62-70, 77, 337, 344, 450, 460, 468, 525, 560 Night Terrors, 179, 281 Nubia, 25, 26 Nudity, 436 ; see also Mixed Bathing Nun in secular Garb, 122 Odysseus, 30 Oedipus, 176 Complex, 165, 174-182, 352-377 Complex and Electra Complex, 174-182 Oedipus Rex, see King Oedipus Oldenberg, 28, 560 Oman, 563 On Religion, Speeches to its cultured Despisers, 563 Onanie, 440, 560 572 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS Onanie und Homosexuality, 440, 563 Only Child, 392-394, 462 Organic Outlook, see Outlook Original Sin, 456 Orthodox Protestantism, see Protes- tantism Orthopaedics, mental, 506, 518-522, 530-536 Outlines of Psychology, 563 Outlook, An organic, 91-92, 324 Overbeck, 68 Over-Education 462, Pddagogik, 115, 560 Pddagogik, der Adlerschen Schule, 343, 561 Padagogische Revolution, zehn Vorles- ungen zur Erneuerung der Kul- tur, 562 Padagogische Schriften, 113, 559 Paedanalysis, 522 Paedophilia, 32, 158, 161 Palmer, 112, 560 Pangs of Conscience, 416-422 Parents, Influence of, 348-392 Parent-Substitutes, 131, 136, 153, 154, 156, 157, 210-2i2, 213, 214, 217, 223, 225, 226, 227, 229, 335, 357. 358, 363. 379, 385, 395, 397. 405, 413. 427. 429, 434 Parents, Breaking away from the, 388,-392, 393 Particular Impulses, 333-347 Passivity, 288-289 Patristic Writings, 103 Paul, 28, 39-40, 101 Pauline Writings, 102, 103 Paulsen, 115, 560 Payne, 561, 562 Peh Ya, 461 Penance, 249 Penis-Envy, 166,351, 394, 434; see also Castration Complex in Women Persephone, 87 Personality, 451 Persuasion, 506-508 Perversion, defined, 340 Pestalozzi, 109-112, 115, 119, 261, 338, 480, 484, 490, 525, 561 Pfeiffer, 219, 561 Pfister, 20, 34, 39, 42, 43, 49, 72, 73, 91, 106, 115, 170, 184, 2or, 218, 260, 266, 269, 272, 275, 276, 320, 343. 354- 388, 450, 486, 487, 492, 508, 516, 552, 561, 562 Philanthropists, 108-109 Philosophic des Unbewussten, 22, 55, 559 Philosophische P&dagogik, 115, 563 Philosophy of the Unconscious, 559 Phimosis Operation, 435 Physicians on Love, 75 Picture of Dorian Gray, 240 Pietism, 43, 106-107 Piety as a Form of Narcissism, 242 Pilate, 235 Plato, 32-6, 41, 44, 46, 50, 51, 54, 59, 62, 67, 70, 77, 100, 450, 551, 562 Play as elder Brother of Art, 220 Play Way, 220, 465-467 Poets on Love, 76 Political Outlooks, 236-237 Polyphemus, 30 POPPELREUTER, 531 Pornography, 76 Praxis und Theorie der Individual- psychologic, 344, 557 Preconscious, 517 Preparatory School of Play, 219-222 Preyer, 113, 562 Prim Aren Gefilhle als Bedingungen der hbchsten Geistesfunktionen, 246, 561 Primitive Folk, 96-97 Prince of Harpers, 461 Principes de la nature et de la Grace, 560 Principles of physiological Psychology, 564 Prisoner of Chilion, 258 Problem des Hamlet und der Oedipus- Komplex, 387, 559 Projection, 399, 411, 501, 533 Protestantism, 159, 161 orthodox,105 Proverbs, 100, 101 Psalms, 31, 101 Pseudo-Reminiscence, 320, 323 Psychic Treatment of nervous Dis- orders, 557 Psychanalyse au service des iducateurs, 561 Psychanalytische Erfahrungen aus der Volkschulpraxis, 213, 214, 270, 530. 564 Psychanalytische Methode, 140, 141, 164, 166, 177, 179, 184, 188, 194, 196, 200, 206, 208, 259, 260, 274, 276, 301, 303, 304, 320, 327, 368, 371, 372, 380, 385, 386, 409, 415, 435. 479, 534, 561 Psychoanalysis, 510-550, et passim active, 535 and Sexual Analysis, 522-527 as Innovation, 510-512 concept and aims of, 513-518 defined, 83, 84, 88-90 educational aim of, 527-530 in Children, 536 in conjunction with other Edu- cational Methods, 538-541 INDEX 573 Psychoanalysis,-(contd.) its Successes and Limitations, 541- 55° moderating Influence of, 527 Psychoanalyse als psychologische Methode, 72 Psychoanalysis and Philosophy, 332 Psychoanalysis in the Service of Education, being an Introduction to Psychoanalysis, 562 Psychoanalyse und. Ethik, 450 Psychoanalyse und Weltanschauung, 300, 332, 450, 561 Psychoanalytic Method, 561 Psychoanalytic Study of Hamlet, 559 Psychodiagnostik, 267, 562 Psychologic de I'enfant et pedagogic exp eriment ale, 113, 114, 557 Psychologic der Brandstiftung, 184 Psychologic der frUhen Kindheit, 92, 563 Psychologic der Liebe, 74, 557 Psychologic des menschlichcn GefUhls- lebens, 74, 114, 563 Psychologische Entratselung der re- ligiosen Glossolalie und der auto- matischen Krpytographie, 562 Psychologische und biologische Unter- grund des Exprcssionismus, 20, 153. 562 Psychology, Faculty, 91, 324, 523 religious, 256, 379 scientific, 70-73 social, 552, 553 Psychology of Early Childhood, II4> 262, 563 Psychoneurosen und ihre psychische Behandlung, 506, 557 Psychonivroses et leur traitement, 557 Psychopathology of Everyday Life, 272, 558 Punishment, 148, 149, 150, 182, 183, 202, 203, 269, 278, 291, 307, 315, 3i9, 348. 358, 363. 372. 373. 378, 380, 388, 401-410, 476-478, 488, 496, 5°9 PflNJER, 52, 562 Putnam,541 Raabe, 288 Rade, 53, 562 Ragaz, 490, 562 Rank, 126, 175, 194. 387> 558, 562 Rastlose Liebe, 23 Reactions of the repressed Material, 318-323 Reading, 225-227 Reden Uber die Religion an die Gebildeten unter ihren Verdchtern, 50. 52, 563 Reformation and Reformers, 43, 77, 104-105, 328 Regression, 326-328, 506 Rehmke, 73 Reichel, 43, 562 Release, distinctive of the Aim of Psychoanalysis, 84 Religion and the Education of the Will, 484-485 Religionen des Orients, 98, 562 Regression, 313-317, et passim; see also Control Reproductive Impulse, 333 Republic, 100 Restless Love, 23 Reuter, 288 Revolution, 19-21 Revolutionary Views, Genesis of, 157, 237. 379, 390 Rewards, 269, 278, 348, 363, 388, 476-478, 509 Richard III, 246 Riviere, 558 Robbers, 228 Robinson, 563 Robinson Crusoe, 226 Rochefoucauld, 22, 559 Romans, 37, 77 Romans, 417 Rorschach, 267, 562 Rousseau, 96, 108, 450, 477, 562 Rubens, 294 Ruprechtsknecht, 537 Ruth, 31 Sadism, 145, 146, 150, 151, 200, 201, 213, 281, 298-299, 339, 362, 379, 386, 401-410, 442 Sallwurk, 114, 563 Salzmann, 109, 563 Sammlung kleiner Schriften zur Neurosenlehre, 253, 427, 443, 558 Sante de Sanctis, 541 Saul, 249 Scheffel, 198 Schein und Sein, 294, 478 Schiller, 23, 175, 211, 227, 472, 563 Schi-tshing, 98, 560 Schizophrenia, 545-546 Schlegel, 50 Schleiermacher, 34, 49, 5O_54> 57» 77- 563 Schmid, 96, 99, 102, 103, 105, 563 Schneider, 249, 267, 270, 541, 563 School, 222-225 Schopenhauer, 22, 55, 62, 65, 69, 7°, 563 Schreiber, 557 Schriften zur Seelenkunde und Erzieh- ungskunsl, 214, 223, 561, 562 574 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS Schule des Willens als Grundlage der gesamten Erziehung, 114, 563 Schule und Charakter, 452, 474, 558 Schumann, 102 Schweitzer, 415 " Schweizer Archiv fiir Neurologic und Psychiatric," 83, 557 " Schweizerblatt fiir das Volk," 109 Scientific Psychology, see Psychology Seele deines Kindes, 393, 449, 560 Seele des Kindes, 113, 562 Seelenleben des Kindes, 114, 557 Self-Education, 481 Self-Depreciation, 246-248 Self-Love and Selfishness, 462 Self-Love biologically essential, 244, 249 Self-Love, disordered, 462 reasonable, 460-469 Self-Negation and Self-Depreciation, 244-248 Self-Preservation, 331, 333-337 Self-Renunciation, 244 Semmelweiss, 511 Semple, 559 Sensations, 266-267 Sensory Feelings, 273-279 Sensory Impulses, 295 Sentimentality, 287-288 Seriousness and Strictness, 472-473 Service of Man, 452, 453 Sexologists on Love, 76 Sexual Analysis and Psychoanalysis, 522-527 Sexual Impulse, 337-341, 522 Sexual Enlightenment, 481-484 deficient or improper, 440-445 Sexual Influence in the Development of Children, 423-445 Sexual Seductions and Assaults, 434- 435 Sexual Spooks, 179, 429 Sexualethik und Sexualpidagogik, 483, 558 Sexualgespenster, 179, 429, 559 Sexuality, defined, 337 " Sexual problems," 179, 429, 559 Shelley, 34 Shintoismus der Japaner, 98, 558 Shock-headed Peter, 258 Short Treatise on God, Man, and Human Welfare, 563 Sigismund, 113 Singer's Curse 156 Sittliche Bewusstsein, 55, 559 Sittliche Empfinden des Kindes, 114 Sleeping Quarters, undesirable, 164, 178, 183, 256, 286, 353, 386, 424-432. 498, 536 Social, ethical, and political stand- point, 232-233 Social Impulse, 333, 341-345 Social Psychology, 552, 553 Socrates, 34, 35, 44 Solipsism, 190 Soli und Haben, 258 Some Applications of Psychoanalysis, 332, 450. 561, 562 Some Thoughts Concerning Education, 107, 560 Sophocles, 37, 177 Species-Preservation, 331 Spencer, 73 Spener, 106 Speyr, 541 Spinoza, 44-46, 70, 404, 563 Spitzweg, 450 Sport, 241, 277, 483 Stadler, 115, 563 Staehelin, 104, 563 Stage Fright, 280 Stammering, Analysis of a Case, 364- 377 Stanley Hall, see Hall Stans, no, 261 Stekel, 440, 495, 563 Stephansburg, 540 Stern, Clara, 92, 563 Stern, William, 92,113, 262, 526, 563 Stellung der Christentums mm Ge- schlechtsleben, 53, 562 Stohr, 73 Stoicism and Stoics, 37, 452 Stork Story, 440, 441 Stottern, 249, 563 Storring, 74, 107, 114, 563 Strauss, 350 Strictness, 472-473 Studies of Childhood, 113, 563 Struggle for Existence, 344 Sublimation, 35, 36, 51, 291-294, 299-303. 347. 381. 438, 439. 440, 469, 473, 476. 495. 496, 513, 524, 526, 527-530, 534, 552 Suggestion, 504-510, 534, 535, 538, . 540, 54i. 550 Suisse nouvelle, 562 Sully, 113, 563 Sun-God, 26 Swabians, The Seven, 71 Sweet Tooth, 242, 373 Sweet Tooth, Relationship to Mas- turbation, 373 Swinging as Cause of sexual Excite- ment, 408 Symbolisation, 322-323 Symposium, 32 Symptomatic Actions, 426 Syria, 26 Tales of Hoffmann, 455 Tausig, 559 INDEX 575 Teacher's Handbook of Psychology, 563 TeichmVller, 35, 36, 37, 46, 47, 59-62, 77, 564 Tekoa, 30 Teleology, 515 Tenderness and Excess of Tenderness, 465-467 Testament, New, 39, 54, 72, 388, 399, 504 Old, 38, 193, 368, 395, 421, 504 Theodicee, 46 Theologians of the Middle Ages, 40- 43 Thoughts 267-268 Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex, 558 Throwbacks, 328; see also Regression Thus spake Zarathustra, 560 Tiedemann, 113 Titchener, 564 Titian, 347 Tobacco, 242 Tolstoi, 151 Tolstoianism, 410 Totem und Tabu, 175, 558 Totemism, 214 Tractatus de Deo et Homine, ejusque felicitate, 563 Transference, 364, 506, 533, 534, 538, 54°. 544. 546, 554 Transference of Affect, 323, 375, 397, 4°5. 457 Transference, negative, 363, 501, 521 positive, 521 Transposition of Roles, 457 Traumdeutung, 137, 368, 387, 558 Trends of the reacting Impulses, 323- 328 Triumph der Liebe, 23, 563 Triumph of Love, 23, 563 Turner, 561 Typical Symbols, 323 Uddusunamir, 554 Ueber das Wesen der Liebe, 47, 59, 564 Ueber den Begriff der Liebe in einigen alten und neuen Sprachen, 31, 557 Ueber den nervosen Charakter, 342, 557 Ueber den Selbstmord, insbesondere Schuler-Selbstmord, 390, 564 Ueber die Idee der Elementarbildung, 112, 561 - Ueber Konflikte der kindlichen Seele, 441. 559 Ueber " wilde " Psychoanalyse, 522, 558 Uhland, 156 Umriss p&dagogischer Vorlesungen, 54, 488, 559 Unconscious, creative, 71, 72, 82, 323 Unconscious Directives in Education, 457 Ursula, 327 Vagaries of Thought, 271-272 Panels of religious Experience, 82, 559 Vehmgericht, 308 Venus, 52 Verbigeration, 221 Vermeintliche Nullen und angebliche Musterkinder, 143, 170, 201, 223, 269, 562 Vermogenspsychologie, 91; see also Psychology, Faculty Verschiedenarlige Psychogenitdt der Kriegsneurosen, 335, 562 Versuch einer Experimental-Seelen- lehre, 81, 559 Vertraute Briefe Uber Lucinde, 50, 51, 52. 563 Vocation, 231-233 Volkmar, 73 Vom mittlerem Kinde, 394, 559 Von der Erziehung, 109, 561 Von kleinen und grossen Leute, 471, 558 . . Vorlesungen zur Einfuhrung in die Psychoanalyse, 339, 522, 523, 524, 534, 558 Voyeur, 178; see also Inspectionism Wahrheil und Schonheit in der Psychanalyse, 72, 562 War, the Great, 19, 70, 217 Wart, 139, 140, 141, 356 Was bietet die Psychanalyse dem Erzieher ? 91, 266, 268, 270, 368, 516, 562 Washing Mania, 235, 381 Wege und Irrwege der Erziehung, 57, ii5>348,449.479.559 Weitere Ausbau der "aktiven Analyse," 535, 558 Wellhausen, 30, 564 Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, 22, 563 Wendt, 54 Werther, 289 West-Eastern Divan, 23, 558 West5stliche Diwan, 23, 558 White, 541, 557 Wie Gertrud ihre Kinder lehrt, no, 561 Wieland, 421 Wilde, 240 Wilhelm, 29, 97, 564 Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre, 502 Will, Education of, 467-469 Will to Power, 560 576 LOVE IN CHILDREN AND ITS ABERRATIONS Will-to-Power as Manifestation of Inferiority Complex, 468 Wille zur Macht, 62, 63, 64, 66, 560 Willensfreiheit, 487, 562 W'lNDELBAND, 159, l6l Wing, 559 " Wissen und Leben," 25, 552, 561, 562, 564 Wissenschaft und Philosophic, 559 Witasek, 73 Witch Burners, 246 World as Will and Idea, 563 Wbrterbuch der philosophischen Be- griffe. 37, 558 Wundt, 72, 504, 564 Youngest Child, 395 Zahn, 194 " Zeitschrift fur Kinderforschung," 364 '* Zentralblatt fur Psychoanalyse," 522, 558 Zeus, 99 Ziehen, 73 ZlNZENDORF, 43, I06, 529 Zinzendorfs Fr mmigkeit im Licht der Psychoanalyse, 43, 562 Zones, erogenic, 338 ZULLIGER, 213, 214, 225, 23I, 27O, 290. 53°. 542> 564 Zum Kampf um die Psychoanalyst, 42, 49, 72, 115, 141, 192, 220, 276, 301, 332, 520, 543, 562 Zum Problem der Affectverschiebung, 323. 558 Zut Einfiihrung des Narxissmus, 253, 558 Zur Genealogie der Moral, 62, 64, 65, 70, 560 Zur Psychologic der Krieges und Friedens, 552, 562 Zur Psychopathologie des Alltagslebens, 272, 320, 558 Zur Technik der Kinder analyse, 536 Zwingli, 54, 104 Printed in Great Britain by UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, LONDON AND WOKING