(1) First in time and perhaps also in importance would seem to be a group of factors connected with the long period of infancy, childhood and youth, which characterises, to a greater or a less extent, all branches of the human race. During this long period, the child is, as we have more than once emphasised, wholly or partially dependent on its parents for the satisfaction of its needs. Now it is a fundamental tendency of the mind to experience pleasure in connection with, and generally to appreciate, those objects which administer to, or are associated with, the basic needs and requirements of the organism; _i. e._ the mind tends naturally to react towards these objects in a manner which, at a higher level of development, we should designate as love[226]. It is not altogether surprising then that, the parents being for many years associated with the fulfilment of the great majority of conscious needs, the nascent love of the child should be directed to them in a greater measure than to any other object. [Sidenote: Primitive sympathy reacting on the expressions of instinctive parental feeling] (2) It is a pretty generally recognised fact that--in virtue of a process which McDougall[227] has conveniently designated primitive sympathy--among the stimuli which are most effective in producing any given feeling or emotion are the manifestations of that feeling or emotion in some other person or persons. Now it is generally admitted by psychologists that the presence of children tends to evoke an instinctive affection and tenderness on the part of the parents; the biological justification, and indeed necessity, for such an instinct, as well as for the fact of its existence being indeed sufficiently manifest--especially no doubt in women but to a considerable extent in men also. In virtue of this instinctive tenderness parents naturally give expression to their affection in the presence of the children, whereupon the latter, reacting through primitive sympathy, tend to experience affection in their turn and to direct it upon the nearest and most appropriate object--_i. e._ the parent whose manifestations of tenderness have aroused the emotion. This sequence of events being frequently repeated, the child's affections come in time to be firmly attached to the parent, reciprocating the affection he receives from this direction. [Sidenote: Love and respect as elements of imitation and suggestibility]