r Smith for cruelty to
a calf, and I acknowledge that I was wrong. I recall explaining to him
that I wanted him to realise what suffering meant, but I was completely
mistaken. If Peter were a Sadist in his cruelty, my cruelty to him was
giving unconscious gratification to the Masochistic part of him. If
his cruelty to the calf was due to his self-assertion again I did the
wrong thing, for the fear evoked by my strap merely inhibited his
desire to assert himself in cudgelling calves. I think now that there
was nothing to be done; his cruelty showed that his whole education had
been wrong. Had he been allowed to create all the way up from one week
old he would have applied his interest to making rabbit-hutches instead
of to beating calves.

I remember a questioner at one of my lectures. I had been trying to
elaborate the release theory, and had said that a boy should be
encouraged to make a noise so that he will release all his interest in
noise as power.

"If a boy liked torturing cats, would you encourage him on the theory
that suppression by an adult would cause the child to retain his
interest in torturing cats?"

"Certainly not," I said, and the lady crowed. I do dislike questioners
at any time, but when they crow . . . .! However, I tried to hide the
murder in my heart by smiling.

"What would you do?" she asked sweetly.

"I don't know, madam," I said, "but I can make a rapid guess . . . I
very probably would use the toe of my boot on him, thereby showing that
my own interest in cruelty was still alive. But five minutes later I
should try to discover what was at the back of the boy's mind."

Not long ago I studied a small boy whose chief pleasure was in pulling
bees' wings off. I never mentioned bees to him, but I got him to talk
about himself. He was suffering from a deep hatred of his teacher, and
he had a bad inferiority complex. He feared to play games like
football and hockey because of his sense of inferiority. All that was
wrong with him was that he was regressing. Life was too difficult for
him, and he took refuge in his infantile past; his pulling off wings
was the destructiveness of the infant. But the important thing to
remember is that destructiveness is simply constructiveness gone wrong.
The child is born good, and all his instincts are to do good. Bad
behaviour is the result of thwarted desire to do good. This is shown
in the case of Tommy on page 115.

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