Inquisitiveness.-At the same time when the sexual life of the child reaches its first bloom, from the age of three to the age of 5, it additionally evinces the start of that exercise which is ascribed to the impulse for data and investigation. We should admit, nevertheless, that the infantile sexual life, although mainly underneath the management of erogenous zones, additionally shows components through which from the very starting different persons are regarded as sexual objects. Its relations to the sexual life, nonetheless, are of specific importance, for we have learned from psychoanalysis that the inquisitiveness of youngsters is interested in the sexual issues unusually early and in an unexpectedly intensive manner, certainly it maybe could first be awakened by the sexual problems. The very fact of the 2 sexes is usually first accepted by the baby with out battle and hesitation. The sexual investigation of those early childhood years is all the time performed alone, it signifies the first step in the direction of independent orientation in the world, and causes a marked estrangement between the little one and the persons of his surroundings who formerly loved its full confidence. Cruelty is very near the childish character, because the inhibition which restrains the impulse to mastery before it causes ache to others-that is, the capability for sympathy-develops comparatively late.

The absence of the barrier of sympathy carries with it the danger that the connections between cruelty and the erogenous impulses formed in childhood can’t be damaged in later life. The top of this improvement varieties the so-referred to as regular sexual life of the grownup in which the acquisition of pleasure has been put into the service of the operate of propagation, and the partial impulses, below the primacy of 1 single erogenous zone, have formed a agency organization for the attainment of the sexual goal in a wierd sexual object. The Phases of Development of the Sexual Organization.-As characteristics of the infantile sexuality we have hitherto emphasised the truth that it is actually autoerotic (it finds its object in its personal physique), and that its individual partial impulses, which on the whole are unconnected and unbiased of one another, are striving for the acquisition of pleasure. Children who’re distinguished for evincing especial cruelty to animals and playmates may be justly suspected of intensive and premature sexual activity within the erogenous zones; and in a simultaneous prematurity of all sexual impulses, the erogenous sexual exercise certainly appears to be main.

Among these we have the impulses for trying and displaying off, and for cruelty, which manifest themselves considerably independently of the erogenous zones and which only later enter into intimate relationship with the sexual life; however along with the erogenous sexual exercise they are noticeable even within the infantile years as separate and impartial strivings. The cruelty component of the sexual impulse develops in the youngster with nonetheless better independence of those sexual actions which are connected with erogenous zones. Organizations of the sexual life in which the genital zones have not but assumed the dominating rôle we’d call the pregenital section. As we all know, a thorough psychological evaluation of this impulse has not as but been efficiently achieved; we might assume that the merciless feelings emanate from the impulse to mastery and appear at a period in the sexual life before the genitals have taken on their later rôle.

Under the affect of seduction the wanting perversion may attain great importance for the sexual life of the youngster. Partial Impulses.-For the remainder, the affect of seduction does not aid us in unravelling the unique relations of the sexual impulse, however somewhat confuses our understanding of the same, inasmuch as it prematurely provides the child with the sexual object at a time when the infantile sexual impulse doesn’t yet evince any want for it. An erogenous supply of the passive impulse for cruelty (masochism) is found within the painful irritation of the gluteal region which is familiar to all educators for the reason that confessions of J.J. Still, from my investigations of the childhood years of regular and neurotic patients, I must conclude that the impulse for trying can appear within the youngster as a spontaneous sexual manifestation. Birth Theories.-Many people can remember distinctly how intensely they interested themselves, in the prepubescent interval, within the question where children got here from. Corresponding with the historical past of this awakening, the first drawback with which it occupies itself shouldn’t be the query as to the difference between the sexes, but the riddle: from where do youngsters come?