That the fury of an injured animal turns against the real or assumed cause of its injury is a matter of notoriety, and everybody knows that the same is the case with the {23} anger of a child. No doubt, as Professor Sully observes, "hitting out right and left, throwing things down on the floor and breaking them, howling, wild agitated movements of the arms and whole body, these are the outward vents which the gust of childish fury is apt to take."[4] But, on the other hand, we know well enough that Darwin's little boy, who became a great adept at throwing books and sticks at any one who offended him,[5] was in this respect no exceptional child. Towards the age of one year, according to M. Perez, children "will beat people, animals, and inanimate objects if they are angry with them; they will throw their toys, their food, their plate, anything, in short, that is at hand, at the people who have displeased them."[6] That a similar discrimination characterises the resentment of a savage is a fact upon which it is necessary to dwell at some length for the reason that it has been disputed, and because there are some seeming anomalies which require an explanation. [Footnote 4: Sully, _Studies in Childhood_, p. 232 _sq._] [Footnote 5: Darwin, 'Biographical Sketch of an Infant,' in _Mind_, ii. 288.] [Footnote 6: Perez, _first Three Years of Childhood_, p. 66 _sq._] In a comprehensive work,[7] Dr. Steinmetz has made the feeling of revenge the object of a detailed investigation, which cannot be left unnoticed. The ultimate conclusions at which he has arrived are these: Revenge is essentially rooted in the feeling of power and superiority. It arises consequently upon the experience of injury, and its aim is to enhance the "self-feeling" which has been lowered or degraded by the injury suffered. It answers this purpose best if it is directed against the aggressor himself, but it is not essential to it that it should take any determinate direction, for, _per se_, and originally, it is "undirected."[8] [Footnote 7: _Ethnologische Studien zur ersten Entwicklung der Strafe_.] [Footnote 8: Strictly speaking, this theory is not new. Dr. Paul Rée, in his book _Die Entstehung des Gewissens_, has pronounced revenge to be a reaction against the feeling of inferiority which the aggressor impresses upon his victim. The injured man, he says (_ibid._ p. 40) is naturally reluctant to feel himself inferior to another man, and consequently strives, by avenging the aggression, to show himself equal or even superior to the aggressor. A similar view was previously expressed by Schopenhauer (_Parerga und Paralipomena_, ii. 475 _sq._). But Dr. Steinmetz has elaborated his theory with an independence and fulness which make any question of priority quite insignificant.]