Page:American Journal of Psychology Volume 21.djvu/104

94 –to whom all conduct whether good or evil at all events springs from conscious sources,–are likely to regard the suggestions put forward above as merely constituting one more of the extravagant and fanciful hypotheses of which the Hamlet literature in particular is so full. For the sake, however, of those who may be interested to apprehend the point of view from which this strange hypothesis seems probable I feel constrained to interpolate a few considerations on two matters that are not commonly appreciated, namely a child's feelings of jealousy and his ideas on death.

The whole subject of jealousy in children is one which arouses such prejudice that even well-known facts are either ignored or are not estimated at their true significance. Stanley Hall in his encyclopaedic treatise makes a number of very just remarks on the importance of the subject in adolescents, but implies that before the age of puberty this passion is of relatively little consequence. The close relation between jealousy and the desire for the removal of a rival by death, as well as the common process of suppression of these feelings, is clearly illustrated in a remark of his to the effect that: "Many a noble and even great man has confessed that mingled with profound grief for the death and misfortune of their best friends, they were often appalled to find a vein of secret joy and satisfaction, as if their own sphere were larger or better." A similar thought is more openly expressed by Bernard Shaw when he makes Don Juan, in the Hell Scene, remark: "You may remember that on earth–though of course we never confessed it–the death of any one we knew, even those we liked best, was always mingled with a certain satisfaction at being finally done with them." Such cynicism in the adult is exceeded to an incomparable extent by that of the child with its notorious, and to the parents often heartbreaking, egotism, with its undeveloped social instincts and with its ignorance of the dread significance of death. A child unreasoningly interprets the various encroachments on its privileges, and the obstacles interposed to the immediate gratification of its desires, as meaningless cruelty, and the more imperative is the desire that has been thwarted the more pronounced is the hostility towards the agent of this cruelty. For a reason that will presently be mentioned, the most important encroachment in this respect, and the most frequent, is that made on the child's desire for affection. This hostility is very often seen on the occasion of the birth of a subsequent child, and is usually regarded with amusement as an added contribution to the general