Page:Fielding - Sex and the Love Life.pdf/49

 mentally sexual in nature. In this connection, Freud states:

"The historians of civilization seem to be unanimous in the opinion that such deviation of sexual motive powers from sexual aims to new aims, a process which merits the name sublimation, has furnished powerful components for all cultural accomplishments. We will, therefore, add that the same process acts in the development of every individual, and that it begins to act in the sexual latency period."

From the practical standpoint, an interesting comparison may be made between successful and unsuccessful sublimation in everyday life, which may readily be noted from casual observation. A neurosis has been described as an unsuccessful attempt at sublimation; or a pathological substitute for sublimation.

Adolescence. The whole organism undergoes distinctive changes during the adolescent period. From the physiological angle, however, it is definitely typified by the convergence of the erotic impulse and affections upon the pelvic or genital zone, with a rapid development of the physical organism as a whole.

Accompanying this physiological revolution, there is a corresponding change in the psychic manifestations. Love fancies are now centered about the personality of a person of the opposite sex and when the practice of masturbation is indulged in, it is usually preceded by or associated with fancies directed toward the love-object. In the preadolescent stage, when masturbation is practiced, it is generally more or less due to automatic and experimental stimulation, with relatively little preliminary fancy.

The more general changes that begin to take place at this time are too well known to need detailed description. Characteristically, in the boy, we observe the sprouting of