Page:American Journal of Psychology Volume 21.djvu/105

Rh gaiety called forth by the happy event. When a child, on being told that the doctor has brought him another playfellow, responds with the cry "Tell him to take it away again," he intends this, not, as is commonly believed, as a joke for the entertainment of his elders, but as an earnest expression of his intuition that in future he will have to renounce his previously unquestioned pre-eminence in the family circle, a matter that to him is serious enough.

The second matter, on which there is also much misunderstanding, is that of the attitude of a child towards the subject of death, it being commonly assumed that this is necessarily the same as that of an adult. When a child first hears of any one's death, the only part of its meaning that he realises is that the person is no longer there, a consummation which in many cases he fervently desires. It is only gradually that the more dread implications of the phenomenon are borne in upon him. When, therefore, a child expresses the wish that a given person, even a near relative, would die, our feelings would not be so shocked as in fact they are, were we to interpret this wish from the point of view of the child. The same remark applies to the frequent dreams of adults in which the death of a near and dear relative takes place, for the wish here expressed is in most cases a long forgotten one, and one no longer directly operative.

Of the infantile jealousies the one with which we are here occupied is that experienced by a boy towards his father. The precise form of early relationship between child and father is in general a matter of vast importance in both sexes, and plays a predominating part in the future development of the child's character; this theme has been brilliantly expounded by Jung in a recent essay. The only point that at present concerns us is the resentment felt by a boy towards his father when the latter disturbs his enjoyment of his mother's affection. This feeling, which occurs frequently enough, is the deepest source of the world-old conflict between father and son, between the young and old, the favourite theme of so many poets and writers. The fundamental importance that this conflict, and the accompanying breaking away of the child from the authority of his parents, has both for the individual and for society is clearly stated in the following passage of Freud's: "Die Ablösung des heranwachsenden Individuums von der Autoritat der