CHAPTER VIII 

 THE CHILD AND THE GARDEN 



FTER our little excursion into the 

 tropics we must now return home 

 again, for the homing instinct is 

 potent in all sentient and intelligent 

 beings. We are not always able to explain to 

 ourselves the cause of this desire to return home 

 which accompanies most of us through life, 

 though of course it is manifest enough where the 

 recollections of childhood and early development 

 have been pleasant ones, as I hope they are in the 

 vast majority of cases. 



But there is something more than this in it, and 

 the instinct frequently exists apart from visible 

 external allurements. It is, I suppose, the uncon- 

 scious impression of the earliest period of depend- 

 ence, when the child has virtually no separate ex- 

 istence and when every necessity and want has 

 been supplied by fostering care upon which its 



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