This notion of cruelty and tyranny is indeed apt to play a very important part in the attitude of children towards their parents. The almost boundless power and authority which the parent possesses over the very young child, combined with the fact that this authority must often be exercised (even by the most indulgent and considerate parents) in what appears to the child a most arbitrary manner and one which displays a ruthless disregard of his own desires and longings--all this may bring about a sense of oppression and of being the victim of a system of brutal force. Such feelings can only be removed by a strong counter-impulse of affection and a gradual understanding and assimilation of the parent's point of view, as mental growth proceeds. If the original feeling of hostility arising from the conflict between the parent's will and that of the child should not be overcome--as may easily happen, if (through some deficiency of tender feeling in the child himself or as the result of some genuine want of consideration on the part of the parent) the child should experience no compensatory emotion of love towards the parent--then the hatred thus aroused may persist with unabated vigour into adult life, or even grow in strength as the years pass. The extraordinarily intense bitterness which may be felt, for instance by a son towards his father, may easily be realised by a study of a number of well known literary works, _e. g._ many of the poems of Shelley. [Sidenote: Conflicting interests of parents and children]