This conception is of importance in the consideration of the influence of environment and education. The example shows what passes over from the mother to the child. It is not the good and pious precepts, nor is it any other inculcation of pedagogic truths that have a moulding influence upon the character of the developing child, but what most influences him is the peculiarly affective state which is totally unknown to his parents and educators. The concealed discord between the parents, the secret worry, the repressed hidden wishes, all these produce in the individual a certain affective state with its objective signs which slowly but surely, though unconsciously, works its way into the child's mind, producing therein the same conditions and hence the same reactions to external stimuli. We know the depressing effect mournful and melancholic persons have upon us. A restless and nervous individual infects his surroundings with unrest and dissatisfaction, a grumbler with his discontent, etc. Since grown-up persons are so sensitive to surrounding influences, we should certainly expect this to be even more noticeable among children, whose minds are as soft and plastic as wax. The father and mother impress deeply into the child's mind the seal of their personality; the more sensitive and mouldable the child the deeper is the impression. Thus things that are never even spoken about are reflected in the child. The child imitates the gesture, and just as the gesture of the parent is the expression of an emotional state, so in turn the gesture gradually produces in the child a similar feeling, as it feels itself, so to speak, into the gesture. Just as the parents adapt themselves to the world, so does the child. At the age of puberty when it begins to free itself from the spell of the family, it enters into life with, so to say, a surface adaptation entirely in keeping with that of the father and mother. The frequent and often very deep _depressions of puberty_ emanate from this; they are symptoms which are rooted in the difficulty of new adjustment. The youthful person at first tries to separate himself as much as possible from his family; he may even estrange himself from it, but inwardly this only ties him the more firmly to the parental image. I cite the case of a young neurotic who ran away from his parents; he was estranged from, and almost hostile to them, but he admitted to me that he possessed a special sanctum; it was a strong box containing his old childhood books, old dried flowers, stones, and even small bottles of water from the well at his home and from a river along which he walked with his parents, etc.