CORRUPTIO OPTIMI PESSIMA 151 



It seems to be quite clear that repressions of 

 the instinctive and subconscious sexual life of 

 childhood make for evil, and that the thera- 

 peutic line is the culture of expression. Freud 

 goes the length of saying that obsessions are in 

 every case transformed reproaches which have 

 escaped from the attempted repression and 

 are always connected with some pleasurable 

 sexual arousal of childhood. 



The hereditary factor counts for much, but 

 there seems no room for doubt that an 

 ignorant and voluptuous mother, an uncon- 

 trolled or careless father, or a vicious nurse, 

 or a precocious playmate, may give a twist 

 to the child's life in its earliest years. But 

 Freud clearly indicates that there is no justi- 

 fication for fatalism; it depends largely on 

 nurture in the widest sense what shall be the 

 issue of the universal conflict between the 

 life-instinct and the love-instinct. And he 

 gives us this sound advice as the practical 

 conclusion of his astonishing psycho-analy- 

 ses : Educate positively through love ; avoid 

 repressive measures, but aid the expression 

 of the normal ; let the child establish its own 

 psychic and social individuality. 



In regard to neurasthenia and the anxiety- 

 neuroses which find so many expressions in 

 modern life, such as irritability, nervousness, 

 " fidgetiness," hyperaesthesia, digestive and 

 cardiac troubles, Freud is not inclined to 

 attach much importance to the direct in- 

 fluence of the " rush " of civilisation. Much 

 more frequently the root of the mischief is 

 sex-repression. There is, as every one knows, 

 too long a period between the awakening of 



