in the emotional and affective attitudes of the child towards its parents and the other important persons in its environment, so far as we have now traced them, the child's conduct is in the primitive a-moral nature of the child some respects more nearly allied to that of the fully developed human being than is generally recognised or admitted. in the depth and intensity of its love and hate, in its sexual or quasi-sexual activities and in its distinctive attitude towards persons of different sex, the child reveals characteristics which have often hitherto been regarded as exclusive manifestations of the adult or adolescent mind. in another very important respect, however, the child's conduct and feeling differ markedly from those of the adult. the emotional and affective reactions with which we have been dealing exhibit a straight-forwardness and simplicity which is not found in the more developed minds of normal adult persons, and which is due to the fact that the child's early conative tendencies are able, to a relatively large extent, to work themselves out without any serious opposition, hindrance or modification caused by the presence of other conflicting tendencies within the mind. the child's mind is a relatively dissociated one; incompatible thoughts, emotions, feelings and desires may successively invade the seat of consciousness, lead to their appropriate reactions and be but little modified or checked by one another. for this reason the child is, during the earliest part of its life, a relatively a-moral being, for morality implies the possibility of two or more courses of thought or action—a better and a worse—and the lack of integration in the child's mind only permits of this possibility[22] to a very limited extent. thus it comes about that the very young child is able to indulge openly in the expression of sexual or hostile tendencies in a manner which is impossible in later life; for to the child the expression of these tendencies does not yet possess the moral and affective meaning which it is destined subsequently to acquire. in the earliest years of life the manifestations of quasi-sexual love, even in an incestuous direction, are at first only the natural expression of a desire, which is gratified as a matter of course and without any hesitation produced by a sense of the immorality of these manifestations. similarly, when the child seeks, by death or otherwise, to bring about the permanent removal of a rival or competitor, the ideas of death and murder are, as freud points out[15], at first quite uncomplicated by the thoughts, feelings and sentiments which later come to be associated with them; the infliction of death—real or imaginary—is simply the most natural way of dealing, at the earliest stages of emotional development, with unwanted persons who interfere with the child's desires and tendencies.
this open and unrestricted expression of primitive tendencies modification of conduct as the result of conflict is, however, confined to a phase of relatively short duration in the history of the child's mind, being generally found only in the first few years of life. the crude love or hate for mother or father, brother or sister, which we have so far been considering, does not long persist in its original form; the normal development of the mind requires that these primitive emotional attitudes shall undergo grave and far reaching modifications, the production of which constitutes an important step towards the attainment of the adolescent or adult point of view.
these modifications are the result of a conflict which takes the forces of repression place in the mind between the love and hate impulses in their original form and certain tendencies of an antagonistic nature which (as already indicated in the last chapter), make their appearance after a certain time and threaten to inhibit the cruder manifestations of the primitive impulses. these new tendencies are themselves, in all probability, derived from more than one source. those which produce modification in the love impulses of the child, may be regarded as constituting, no[23] sexual inhibition doubt, only so many particular instances of that inhibition of sexual and quasi-sexual activity which exercises such a large influence in the formation of human character in general.
the precise history and nature of the motives that are at work here are not as yet completely understood, and we shall have occasion to consider the subject again at a later stage of our present enquiry. there can be little doubt that one of the factors concerned is to be found in the suggestive influence of social pressure and tradition manifesting itself in the case of the child, through the behaviour and expression of the adult persons with whom it is brought into contact[16]. in appreciating and responding to these influences, the child is probably helped herd instinct by a special instinctive mechanism which tends to make it conform to the behaviour, opinions and emotional atmosphere of its human environment. a "herd instinct" of this kind is regarded by some psychologists as constituting the moral force operating as one of the opposing tendencies in all intra-psychical conflicts such as that with which we are here concerned[17]. it is indeed almost certainly a factor of very considerable importance in this connection; the manner in which sexual restrictions and inhibitions so markedly vary from one time, place or social condition to another indicates that there is no deep rooted instinctive tendency towards the suppression of any particular manifestations of sexuality, but rather that the nature of the modifications and restraints undergone by sexual activities is determined for the most part by prevalent moral conventions passively taken over by the individual from the society in which he finds himself. nevertheless, it would seem doubtful whether the practically universal existence of some kind of sexual restriction can be entirely accounted for in this way. for other reasons it would appear probable that a tendency to some sort of quite general inhibition of primitive sexual activities is part of the original mental endowment of each human individual, even though the particular manifestations of this inhibitory tendency[24] are principally determined by suggestive influences from the environment. to this point also we shall have occasion to revert later on, when we shall be in a more favourable position for forming an opinion with regard to it.
with reference to the moral tendencies which are operative in producing modifications of the primitive hatreds of the child there can be little doubt that here also herd instinct is in many cases a factor of importance. at quite an early age, the child begins to learn that it is "right" to love and obey its parents and "wrong" to resist the dictates of the parental authority or to quarrel with its brothers or sisters: and these precepts are constantly inculcated with all the impressive suggestiveness which social, educational and religious influences have at their command. of equal, if not greater, importance, however, is the love, gratitude and admiration tendency of the child to feel affection towards those with whom it lives in intimate relationship, to whom it is indebted for all or most of its material possessions and enjoyments and whom it in many cases admires and looks up to as the ideal of fully grown humanity to which it may itself one day attain. the natural growth and development of these feelings are, however, it is true, helped and encouraged by the moral suggestions received from outside, whereas these same outside influences tend powerfully to inhibit the contrary feelings of hatred and hostility.
after this brief consideration of the nature of the psychic the nature and results of conflict forces which at a certain stage of development come to be arrayed in opposition to the primitive manifestations of love and hate as brought out by the circumstances of family life, we turn now to contemplate the nature and outcome of the conflict that takes place within the mind between the two sets of antagonistic tendencies. our knowledge concerning this and other similar intra-psychical conflicts has during recent years been very considerably increased by the work of freud and other psychologists of the psycho-analytic school. generally it may be said that the outcome of such a conflict varies according to the relative success of one of the conflicting tendencies over the other. if the two combatants are of approximately equal strength, there may be a continuous struggle between them of such a kind as to make itself clearly felt in consciousness; the individual being then as a rule incapable[25] of vigorous action in gratification of either tendency. in other cases the competing tendencies may alternately dominate consciousness and conduct; so that the behaviour of the individual becomes characterised by impulsiveness and want of balance rather than by want of energy.
at the opposite extreme there are conflicts which end by the complete exclusion of one tendency from any direct influence on consciousness or on behaviour; the individual becoming then normally quite unaware of the existence of any such tendency within his mind. this exclusion from consciousness or from any direct manifestation in behaviour does not, however, of itself bring about a complete annihilation of the tendency in question. it would seem, on the contrary, that such a tendency may continue to exist for a long period (even for a whole lifetime) in the unconscious regions of the mind, where its presence may be demonstrated by the use of suitable methods. such an outcome of conflict, in which one tendency is driven down to the unconscious and confined there by the other, is—as we have already stated—usually designated by the term repression.
the process of repression is, however, rarely carried to displacement and sublimation such a degree as to render one of the conflicting tendencies completely and permanently incapable of direct expression. most frequently all that is effected is a modification of such a kind that in its new form the repressed tendency no longer conflicts to the same extent as before with the repressing tendency. this process of modification has received the name of displacement and consists essentially in the abandonment on the part of the repressed tendency of its original end or object in favour of a new one which meets with less resistance from the opposing motives. when the new end or object is of such a nature as to be culturally or ethically of appreciably greater value than the original one, the modification undergone by the tendency in question is often spoken of as sublimation—a term which thus comprehends all the "higher" and more desirable cases of displacement[18].
[26]
in the conflict with which we are here concerned, those motives of a relatively social or ethical character which we have already considered in this chapter, act as the repressing force; while the original primitive tendencies of love and hate, with which we were concerned in the last chapter, suffer the repression. as regards the degree to which the repression is carried, it would appear that in a considerable number of cases the more strongly tabooed among the socially and ethically objectionable elements become forced out of consciousness without producing any immediate conscious equivalents. this, perhaps, is liable to take place more especially as regards some of the more directly sexual aspects of the child's attitude towards its parents. as freud has pointed out[19] there occurs at some time in the early period of childhood—perhaps most usually at about the sixth year, a relatively latent sexual period, during which all sexual manifestations are more or less in abeyance. the existence of this period would seem to imply a temporary general sexual repression, in which the erotic aspects incest repression in the affection of the child to its parents suffer, together with all other sexual elements. this initial period of repression seems to play an important part in the production of a permanent dissociation between the sexual desires and the feelings experienced in relation to the parents, so that sexual emotion and filial affection are thereafter seldom permitted to enter consciousness together. indeed it would appear that this general repression of sexual activity is to some extent removed only in so far as this dissociation has taken place; for on the reappearance of a more vigorous sexuality at the close of the latent period, the erotic tendencies would seem normally to have undergone a process of displacement so that they are no longer so intimately connected with the parent-love as on their first appearance.
in all the more favourable cases of development, however, displacement as regards the object of love it is probable that even from the first the conflict between the primitive elements of love and hate and the newly unfolding ethical tendencies results to a great extent in the displacement and gradual sublimation of the former and not merely in their repression or return to a latent state. the process of displacement here takes the form of a dissociation of the more erotic[27] aspects of the child's affection from the loved parent—these aspects being thus set free for bestowal upon other persons. the choice of such fresh objects for the child's affection is determined in accordance with what would appear to be a general law governing the process of displacement, viz., that the new end or object, to which the psychic energy is directed, must have some associative connection with the old object which has been abandoned. for this reason, it is very frequently possible to trace some kind of resemblance between the loved parent and the new object of affection; though this resemblance may be of very various degrees or kinds. thus, the new object of affection may bear some resemblance to the parent in one or more of the following points: physical appearance (either general or as regards some special feature), mental characteristics, circumstances of life (both these last again being either general or special), age, name, past history, occupation or family relationship. sometimes, moreover, the resemblance may be of an opposing or negative kind, the later object of love being markedly different from, or contrasting with, the original object in some one or more of these characters. in the case of a succession of such loved objects, it is not unusual for the resemblance to the original object of affection to become gradually less pronounced, in accordance with a further general characteristic of displacement, in virtue of which the higher sublimations (i. e., those which imply ends very different from, and of higher cultural value than, the original objects of desire) are only attained slowly and through a number of intermediate steps.
a first step of frequent occurrence and of great importance parent substitutes in a large number of cases is the transference of erotic love from the parent to some other member of the family, e. g., brother, sister or (usually at a somewhat later stage of development) cousin. in the first two cases the new choice of object has the additional advantage of tending to abolish the hate or jealousy which, as we saw, is apt to characterise the original attitude towards such members of the family: and this in two ways:—(1) negatively, by removing the cause of the jealousy, since, as the parent is now no longer the sole object of affection, the rival claims of brothers and sisters upon the attention of the parent are no longer felt to be objectionable;[28] (2) positively, by investing the brother or sister with the attributes of lovableness formerly reserved for the parent.
in the same way, the diversion of the erotic tendencies from the parent of the opposite sex removes the principal cause of jealousy and hatred felt towards the parent of the same sex, so that, in the absence of other causes of hostility, this hatred—in itself, as we pointed out, originally in some respects a secondary phenomenon—may give place to the affection which, in their capacity of protectors and benefactors, tends normally to be inspired in some degree by both parents alike. but even in so far as the hate may be primary (due as a rule to frequent thwarting of the child's desires and activities or to bullying, nagging or generally unsympathetic behaviour on the part of the parent in question), it tends to undergo a considerable degree of repression or displacement on its own account, so that after a time the child no longer experiences in consciousness any violent aversion to its parent; such aversion being either confined to the unconscious or displaced on to other objects in a manner which we shall study later on.
the fact that the first choice of loved object other than the infantile attitude in early love the parent is associatively connected with the original object of love, is shown not only in the nature of the objects selected but also to some extent in the attitude of the child or adolescent towards the objects of his love. in the loves of the young towards persons of the opposite sex, there is usually a strong element of reverence and admiration, a deep feeling of gratitude for any favours that may be received, combined with a sense of the lover's own unworthiness and inferiority; a total attitude very similar to that not unreasonably adopted towards their own parents, to whom they are indebted for the very necessities of life throughout their childhood and to whom they naturally feel themselves to be inferior in knowledge, experience and moral worth. thus in the early loves of the young boy, the objects of his affection are apt to be regarded as queen-like or semi-divine beings—models of beauty, virtue and wisdom—to whose perfections they themselves (the lovers) can never hope to attain and of whom they must remain for ever to some extent unworthy. similar elements constitute the most important factors in that tendency to schw?rmerei which[29] so frequently distinguishes the early attachments of young girls[20].
the adoption of this attitude by the young in their early loves is of course often facilitated by the fact that the objects selected are older than the youthful lovers themselves. but this is not a necessary condition. something of this attitude may indeed persist throughout the love life of the individual, since the exaggeration of the desirable qualities of the loved person, which forms a normal feature of sexual (and probably of all) love, easily brings with it a sense of the relative inferiority of the lover's own self. in the loves of a more mature age, however, this relatively childlike attitude towards the object of love is usually replaced by one in which the lover plays a more active, vigorous and self-reliant part, such as is suitable to a person of fully developed capacity and experience.
simultaneously with this latter change there goes on a emancipation from infantile love objects continuance of the process of liberation of the love impulse from its original object. this would seem to take place by a further use of the mechanisms of repression and displacement. the love as redirected to the first parent-substitutes after a time itself begins to meet with opposition from other psychic tendencies on account of the too great similarity or the too[30] firm associative connection between the original object and its substitutes. thus the existence of anything like erotic feeling towards brothers, sisters, or other members of the family or towards persons resembling the parents in age or appearance ceases to be tolerated and at each fresh choice of object the associative link becomes less marked, so that finally it may cease altogether to be traceable. thus at maturity the individual should, for practical purposes, be free to direct his love towards those who show no resemblance of any kind to the first object of his dawning affection. this may be looked upon as the normal goal of the development of the love impulse in relation to its objects. any failure to attain this goal must, it would seem, be regarded as constituting to some extent a failure or arrest of development with respect to this highly important aspect of the individual's mental growth.
