SEX AND SOCIAL RELATIONS 219 



parent and child, which expresses itself in certain 

 definite resemblances of the child to the parent 

 resemblances in physique and in intellectual and 

 emotional reactions. This similarity in reaction is 

 normally the basis of a psychical penetration into 

 the child life which is not given, in anything like the 

 same degree, to any other person. This assertion 

 does not hold good, perhaps, for all phases of the 

 child's psychical life, but surely it is valid for some 

 of them. These phases resemble an elaborate lock 

 to which there exist only two keys the maternal 

 mind and the paternal mind. The fact that many 

 parents do not use these keys, and are, indeed, un- 

 aware of their possession, does not vitiate the truth of 

 this view. 



Thus divorce deprives the offspring of a large part 

 of that which is its most precious birthright the 

 possibility of sympathetic parental help. This may 

 prove as definite a handicap in the struggle for exist- 

 ence as the loss of an arm or a leg. Now this 

 parental secession from a clearly implied biological 

 obligation, being not accidental but wholly delib- 

 erate, must be regarded as the most serious breach 

 of trust by which one human being can damage 

 another. The human mind is, for the most part, so 

 preoccupied with things and with static rather than 

 dynamic points of view, that this statement of the 

 case will appeal to many as extreme. The more 

 closely the position is scrutinized, the most strongly 

 will it appeal to the sense of justice. 



