Dr. T. W. Mitchell, who disagrees somewhat with Freud's interpretation, thus summarizes his description:‡ 'The sexual impulse of the child manifests itself as a very complex one; it permits of an analysis into many components which spring from different sources. It is entirely disconnected from the function of reproduction which it is later to serve. It permits the child to gain different sorts of pleasure sensations, which we include, by the analogies and connections which they show, under the term "sexual pleasure." . . . In the course of time, when there is normal development of the sexual life, most of the original impulse components become subordinated to the overlordship of the genital zone, so that the whole sexual life is taken over into the service of procreation. But even before puberty certain impulses have undergone the most energetic repression, and mental forces like shame, disgust, and morality, are developed, which, like sentinels, keep the repressed wishes in subjection. The repressed wishes which chiefly concern us here are those attaching to the persons of primitive object choice. These are almost invariably the parents, or one of them, whom the child takes as an object of his erotic wishes.

The mental complex * which arises out of this relation between parent and child is soon repressed, but it continues to exert a great and lasting effect from the unconscious.'

* Sublimation is defined by Freud as 'the capacity to exchange an original sexual aim for another which is no longer sexual, though psychically related.'

† It is contended that it is unscientific and foolish to attempt to cure an abscess caused by the presence of a foreign body without getting at the cause and removing it, so it is illogical to attempt to cure a malady arising from psychical shock without getting at and removing the source of irritation. This principle has been acted upon in the past by Gibert and others, as is shown on p. 88 et seq.

% Transactions of the Psycho-Medical Society, vol. iv., part i.

It is to the sublimation of these infantile instincts that civilization finds itself indebted, since they are converted into religious energies, social service, and to purposes of literature, art, and science, as well as to the controlled gratification of all the senses, in which is included the function of reproduction.

The opposite of sublimation is perversion of some sort, and there are many delicate shades of conduct between the two extremes. We find that no character is entirely perfect or wholly worthless, and as Moebius says,' We are all a little hysterical.' An analogous pathological tendency is seen in the origin of new growths. The structures composing malignant growths are always present in the body; ' they deviate from the normal condition, so to speak, in time and place. . . . They are composed of embryonic tissue, sometimes pure, but more commonly showing a tendency towards development into the type normal to the part in which the tumour is growing.'†

* The (Edipus complex. † Erichsen's ' Science and Art of Surgery.'

Dr. Jones says a' neurosis represents an atavism, and it is with the object of enabling our patients to adapt themselves to civilized standards, and to effect sublimation, that we attempt through psycho-analysis to undo the influence of infantile fixations which are preventing this.' *

An example of infantile fixation occurred in one of my patients, who repeatedly obtained sexual gratification by blacking a moustache upon her upper lip. When at her worst, ' marking a book ' would serve to afford her pleasure of the same kind. On analysis, this trouble was traced back to infancy. It was not till she reached the age of twenty that she connected her ideas in any way with sex, although she had long before conceived of the habit as being odd and inexplicable to herself or others; the few attempts she had made to solve it by seeking advice had driven her farther and farther into herself, owing to the mental confusion she found it excited in her advisers; and she grew to regard it as a secret indulgence of some kind.

In adolescence the struggle between her desires and her moral self brought about a conflict so severe as to lead to neurasthenia and symbolic hysterical pain in the ovarian region. For this she consulted an eminent gynaecologist, from whom, of course, the foregoing nervous history was hidden. An ovariotomy was done, and the self-knowledge that the operation and its sequelae imposed revealed to my patient the sexual origin of her trouble, which was for a time relieved, only to return later with renewed force and added conflict. Ten years later the patient came to me. In the meantime another symbolic neuralgia had arisen, and she had gone through rest cures, attended spas, and spent most of her time combating her troubles. After a laborious analysis, I was able to explain to her that this was a form of masturbation in phantasy, help her to track down other accessory fixations, and bring her to the point of fighting her troubles in the open and on normal grounds.

* Transactions of the Psycho-Medical Society, vol. v., part i.

During the treatment she steadily improved in health and mental capacity, and was able to take up life, no longer a psychic invalid, but on more or less equal terms with her fellows. A brief reference to two of her manifold dreams serves to illustrate the way in which a psychoneurotic symptom may appear, and may obtain gratification in a dream. In the first dream she writes an essay which she brings to me, and is pleased when I put many black marks of correction upon it. In another dream she nurses her mother and looks after her sick-room, and finds special pleasure in blacking the grate.

The sexual life may be represented by a curve. At different ages the human being should be at a given place on this curve. In psychoneurotics certain instincts in an adult of thirty may still occupy a position which would have been normal at the age of two; such fixation, being unsuitable to the ego and environment, brings about conflict and states of dissociation. These infantile instincts have become repressed into the unconscious, where at a later period they may become active, as illustrated in the foregoing case.