These considerations with reference to the growth of the individual personality in relation to the family environment are indeed, as we have already pointed out, for the most part of a sufficiently obvious character and, in their more general bearings at any rate, have for some time been commonplaces in certain schools of social, ethical, and educational thought. Where modern psychology (and particularly the work of the Zürich school) has been of service, is in drawing attention to the importance of the family as the environment in which the first steps in the path of self help and self guidance must take place--steps upon the direction and extent of which subsequent progress in the wider spheres of scholastic, social and political life very greatly depends. The rapidity with which, and the extent to which, a child attains to independence in relation to his family, are to a large extent prophetic of the subsequent attainment of independence towards the world at large. A too close reliance upon the ideals, standards, conventions and protective power of the family circle may hinder all initiative and originality in individual thought and action. On the other hand, a too sudden or too complete revolt from the parental guidance and tradition may be productive of a bias against, and disrespect for, every kind of authority and convention, that will tend to prevent all use and enjoyment of the experience of the past and all orderly co-operation in the social life of the present. With these possibilities as the result of failure, the task of the proper upbringing of the child in relation to his family environment becomes indeed one the importance of which can scarcely be exaggerated. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 29: The somewhat sharp distinction here drawn between the sexual aspects of the family relationships and those here under consideration (which for the sake of convenience we may call the dependence aspects), although employed throughout this essay, is made primarily for purposes of exposition and is not intended to imply that the distinction is in fact so sharply cut as the present method of treatment might possibly suggest. In real life the sexual and the dependence aspects are inextricably interwoven, and it is probable that the majority of psycho-analysts would be inclined to lay somewhat less stress on the distinction than does the present writer.]