The conception of the Devil also is to a very considerable extent derived from the Narcissistic impulses--the individual _projecting_ on to "the author of evil" those aspects of himself of which he disapproves (more particularly perhaps the sexual aspects). In this way he, in a sense, frees his own personality from tabooed wishes of whose operation in himself he would otherwise become unpleasantly aware, and in this way absolves himself from the responsibility for actions committed at the instigation of these wishes. These self-regarding aspects constitute without doubt a most important factor in the psychology of Religion and serve to remind us once again of the limitation of our psychological treatment. They fall outside our present theme, inasmuch as they take their origin from a mental level phylogenetically and ontogenetically prior to that at which are developed the psychic relations of the individual to his family which constitute our subject in this volume.] [Footnote 199: _Cp._ J. C. Flügel, "Freudian Mechanisms as Factors in Moral Development," _British Journal of Psychology_, 1917, VIII, 477.] CHAPTER XIV THE ATTITUDE OF PARENTS TO CHILDREN [Sidenote: The affective reactions of the parent towards the child] In dealing thus far with the psychic aspects of the filio-parental relations in their origin, nature and development, we have for the most part based our considerations on the standpoint of the child rather than on that of the parent. Such a course would seem to be justified from the genetic point of view by the fact that every individual has first to be a child before he can become a parent, and that consequently, though his attitude as a parent is very liable to be influenced by his experience as a child, there can be no corresponding influence of a converse nature. As a matter of fact, however, we have, in the course of our consideration of the psychic development of the child in relation to the influences emanating from the family, fairly often had occasion to concern ourselves at least indirectly with the mental attitude of the parents as a factor in this development.