confined to the sexual organs, but is distributed throughout
the entire body, especially through the vascular and nervous systems.
In these children there is a state of exaltation, indeed as yet not
comparable in intensity to that of the adolescent or adult, which is,
nevertheless, erethistic in its nature. It is massive, vague, and
generally distributed throughout the body. In some cases there is
specific sexual excitement with erections of the penis and hyperaemia
of the female genitalia. Such phenomena are seen only in the cases
that seem to me to be precocious. This point will be more fully
treated in the chapter referred to above. Suffice it to say here that
in love between the sexes at this early period or in the next
following, the physical sensations of sexual excitement are generally
wholly wanting, or if present are entirely unlocated. Love between
children of the opposite sex bears much the same relation to that
between adults as the flower does to the fruit, and has about as
little of physical sexuality in it as an apple-blossom has of the
apple that develops from it.

The love demonstrations of children in the first stage of the
emotion's development are generally spontaneous, profuse, and
unrestrained. There is an absence of shyness, of any sense of shame,
of the feeling of self-consciousness. The children have as yet no
notion of the meaning of sex. Their naivete in this regard has not
been destroyed by the social suggestion that such actions are wrong
and vulgar. They are natively happy and free in their ignorance. The
individual differences among children are as great in their
experiencing and manifesting this emotion as they are in any other
phase of life, so not infrequently we find children under eight years
of age who are shy, repressive and self-conscious in regard to their
love actions. The same children are shy and repressive in other
things. It is more of a general disposition than a specific attitude
toward this one emotion.

The giving of gifts and the sharing of choice possessions is very
common. The emotion in its earliest form introduces the element of
self-sacrifice for the loved one that is inseparable from the emotion
in all of its normal stages of development. It likewise introduces
the intense selfishness that comes from the desire to monopolize the
allegiance of the one loved. An only child, who as a rule is very
selfish and will not share any of his possessions with others,
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