at least, their material possessions and enjoyments also. The works of psycho-analytic writers contain numerous examples of such brother and sister hatreds in early years. As a rule the younger child resents the advantages and privileges of which it finds the older children already in possession; it finds itself in many respects compelled to submit to the superior size and strength and experience of the older children, whom it is therefore inclined to regard as tyrants, the only refuge from whose brutal power lies in appeal to the still higher adult powers who control the destinies of the nursery. Older children, on their part, are inclined to regard any new arrival in the family circle as an intruder upon their own preserves and a competitor for their own cherished rights, privileges and possessions. Hence the announcement of such a new arrival is in many cases greeted, in the first instance, with anything but joy, and the wish is often expressed that the intruder should depart again whence he came. Indeed it would seem probable from some cases that not a little of the interest displayed by children in the processes of conception, gestation and (more especially) birth, is due to the fact that these processes are intimately connected with the appearance of a new brother or sister to disturb the peaceful monopoly of the family possessions and affections which the elder children have hitherto enjoyed. In other cases, again, the resentment felt towards the new intruder may be so great that it may even find expression in an actual attempt on the part of an older child to do away with the younger one[14] should a convenient opportunity for this present itself. [Sidenote: Love between brothers and sisters] Although jealousy and hatred are thus apt to be the first emotional reactions of brothers and sisters towards one another, there can be no doubt that a brother or sister may from the beginning be an object of affection, the object love of the child being directed towards its brother or sister in much the same manner as towards its parent. This is much more likely to happen in relation to an elder than in relation to a younger member of the family and occurs most frequently when there is a considerable difference in age between the children concerned, so that interests and desires no longer conflict and overlap to the same extent as they do in the case of children of approximately equal age. The most favourable conditions for the direction of a child's object love in this manner are to be found in those large working-class families, where an elder sister frequently takes over some of the attributes of the mother as regards the younger children. In such a case the feelings of the younger child (particularly if that child be a boy) towards its elder sister are usually of an affectionate nature from the very start. FOOTNOTES: