ceed
in thrusting out of his consciousness the thought of his
disappointments and worries, yet the disturbance in his mind may show
itself in quarrels with his wife or complaints of the quality of the
cooking at dinner.

Freud has called attention to the part which the suppressed and
long-forgotten experiences of early childhood play in the production
of neuroses of all sorts at a later date, and he has laid especial
emphasis on sexual experiences as peculiarly fruitful causes of such
disturbances. Those who have embraced Freud's teaching have gone even
farther than he in this direction, and by psycho-analysis--that is to
say, by attempting in intimate conversation to arouse the dormant
memory and lay bare the buried complex, the suppression of which has
produced the conflict in the mind of the sufferer--will seldom fail to
discover the influence of sexual forces and sexual attractions which,
while capable of causing disorders of mind and of conduct, show
themselves only obscurely and indirectly, as, for example, in dreams
or in symbolic form.

So far as the nervous disorders of children are concerned, much that
is written to-day upon the influence of repressed sexual experiences
may be dismissed as grotesque and untrue. The conclusions to which the
psycho-analyst is habitually led, and which he puts forward with such
confidence, can be convincing only to those who have replaced the
study of childhood by the study of the writings of Freud and his
school. Thus it is common enough to find a mother complaining that her
child of two or three years of age is bitterly jealous of the new baby
who has come to share with him his mother's love and attention.
According to the views of Freud, we are to recognise in this jealousy
an exhibition of the sexual instincts of the older child, who scents a
possible rival for the affections of his mother. Even if we give to
the term sexual the widest possible meaning, it is difficult for a
close observer of children to detect any truth in this conclusion. The
behaviour of the older child to the newly born will be determined
mainly by the attitude adopted by the grown-up persons around him and
by the unconscious suggestions which his impressionable mind receives
from them. If the mother is fearful of what may happen, and refuses to
leave the children alone, she will find it hard to hide from the older
child her conviction that danger is to be apprehended from him. If
this suggestion acts