If this is so, it would seem fairly clear that our practical efforts must on the whole be directed to aid the process of weaning the individual from his family attachments rather than to any attempt at preventing or destroying these attachments themselves. The tendencies that bind the individual to the family are probably too deeply rooted in Man's nature to yield to any such direct attack; and in any case, in spite of a character in some respects archaic, it is almost certain that they still perform a necessary and beneficial part in the process of psychical development--a part for which no adequate substitute could easily be found; so that it would be undesirable to eliminate the operation of these tendencies, even if such elimination were within the bounds of possibility. Thus it would seem that all schemes and attempts that have been made, from Plato onwards (and probably long before him), with a view to preventing the development of the feelings that centre in and are aroused through connection with the family, are doomed to failure:--practical failure, because these feelings are too strong, too intimate and essential a part of human nature to be successfully and permanently inhibited by any alteration of environment[265]; moral failure, because the development of certain of the most important aspects of human character are, in their origin and first appearance, bound up with these feelings and would probably fail to ripen if these feelings were abolished. [Sidenote: Family love in early years is necessary for individual development and happiness]