Pursuing the infinite nothing of this now happily satisfied dream theory, we discover that “dreams of the death of parents predominately refer to that member of the parental couple which shares the sex of the dreamer,” except, of course, in the case of the homo-sexual. Or, “to express the matter boldly, it is as though a sexual preference becomes active at an early period, as though the boy regards his father as a rival in love, and as though the girl takes the same attitude towards her mother ... a rival by getting rid of whom he or she cannot but profit.”[79] Dr. Watson, though he knew not the reason, was certainly right in saying that bringing up children was a perilous business. What else would the fate of Laius and Jocasta lead us to expect? To put the matter beyond doubt, Freud cites the case of an eight-year-old girl of his acquaintance, who, if her mother happens to be called away from the table, reveals her psychic enormity by saying, “Now I shall be Mamma. Charles, do you want some more vegetables?”[80] Freud is not a man to be deceived by the seeming innocence of play. And he blames “that sanctity which we have ascribed to the injunctions of the Decalogue”[81] for the dullness which keeps us from perceiving the incestuous and homicidal tendencies of our young. It may be admitted that “no other impulse has had to undergo so much suppression from the time of childhood as the sex impulse”;[82] and, the parental instinct of self-preservation being what it is, the fact is not surprising. And these suppressive tactics seem to have been in vogue from the earliest times. “The obscure and primitive ages of human society give us an unpleasant idea of the power of the father” and the ruthlessness with which it was used. Kronos devours his children as the wild boar devours the brood of the sow; Zeus [in the rôle of retributive justice] castrates his father ... and takes his place as ruler.”[83] Now, as I remember this legend, Zeus operated with a sickle--an immemorial image of Time. And as Kronos is himself a symbol of Time, I long supposed that here was a figurative way of saying that Time (Kronos), which devours all things (his children), shall himself eventually be devoured, as it were by himself--the sickle. But evidently the theory of dreams cannot be satisfied by symbols when they are used to interpret mythology.