Before we enter upon Miss Miller’s attempt to bring to light through her suppositions[64] the root of this subliminal creation, we will attempt a short analytic survey of the material already in our possession. The impression on the ship has already been properly emphasized, so that we need have no further difficulty in gaining possession of the dynamic process which brought about this poetical revelation. It was made clear in the preceding paragraphs that Miss Miller possibly had not inconsiderably undervalued the importance of the erotic impression. This assumption gains in probability through experience, which shows that, very generally, relatively weak erotic impressions are greatly undervalued. One can see this best in cases where those concerned, either from social or moral grounds, consider an erotic relation as something quite impossible; for example, parents and children, brothers and sisters, relations (homosexual) between older and younger men, and so on. If the impression is relatively slight, then it does not exist at all for the participators; if the impression is strong, then a tragic dependence arises, which may result in some great nonsense, or be carried to any extent. This lack of understanding can go unbelievably far; mothers, who see the first erections of the small son in their own bed, a sister who half-playfully embraces her brother, a twenty-year-old daughter who still seats herself on her father’s lap, and then has “strange” sensations in her “abdomen.” They are all morally indignant to the highest degree if one speaks of “sexuality.” Finally, our whole education is carried on with the tacit agreement to know as little as possible of the erotic, and to spread abroad the deepest ignorance in regard to it. It is no wonder, therefore, that the judgment, _in puncto_, of the importance of an erotic impression is generally unsafe and inadequate.