"the dawning consciousness
of religion," etc., take the place of the earlier and more direct
animistic interpretation. But the essential misinterpretation is
retained, disguised from careless or uninformed people by the use of a
modified terminology. But in substance the use made of puberty by
organised religious forces remains the same throughout. We have the same
absence of a rational explanation in both instances. In the one because
the state of knowledge makes any other impossible; in the other because
tradition, self-interest, and prejudice prevent its use. It is not only
in his physical structure that man carries reminiscences of a lower form
of life; such reminders are quite as plentiful in his mental life, and
in social institutions.

Even with many who perceive the mechanism of conversion its real
significance is often missed. For the important thing is, not that some
people express the changes incident to adolescence in terms of religion,
but that many do not, and also that these find complete satisfaction
along lines of aesthetic, intellectual, or social interest. Yet one often
finds it assumed that the difference between the two classes is
explained by assuming a certain lack of 'spiritual' development in the
non-religious class. As stated, this is often perilously near to
impertinence, and in any case is little better than the language of a
charlatan. In the same way, the use of amatory phraseology is often
treated as the intrusion of the sex element in a sphere in which it has
no proper place. Enough has already been said to furnish good grounds
for believing that there is much more than this in the phenomenon, and
that one is justified in treating it as symptomatic of the operation of
forces of the nature of which the subject is quite unaware. The only
explanation of the facts already cited is that a misinterpretation of
sexual states lies at the heart of the question. No other hypothesis
covers the facts; no other hypothesis will explain why the larger number
of people should find complete development in activities that lie
outside the field of religion.

How easy it is to see the truth and distort it in the stating may be
seen in the following passage:--

"Passing over the fact that the period of adolescence is noticeably a
period of 'susceptibility,' we may take as an example of the intrusion
or the persistence of the sexual elements in conditions of a non-sexual
kind the frequent association of sex