For the dispute to what extent sexual perversions are congenital and to what extent they are acquired, prevails not only concerning homosexuality, but also concerning sadism, masochism, sexual fetichism, &c. In the case also of these latter perversions, some maintain that in those instances in which the perversion began in childhood, some early association was the originating cause; whilst others, from the very fact that the perversion appeared very early in life and was apparently primary, infer that it must be of a congenital character. For instance, a man experiences sexual excitement whenever he sees a cook or other woman kill a fowl; and when revived in memory, the corresponding ideas exercise a similar exciting influence. On inquiry, we learn that when he was eight years old he by chance saw a fowl killed, and then immediately felt strong sexual excitement. Similarly, many masochists and sadists assure us that their first experience of their peculiarly tinged sexual excitement occurred during childhood; _e.g._, in the case of the masochist, when being punished with a whipping, and so on. Beyond question, the impressions of childhood may result in the formation of enduring associations. From experiences during childhood may originate terrors and feelings of disgust which are never subsequently overcome. A child who for any reason has several times felt a strong loathing towards some particular article of food, will retain throughout life a dislike to this same substance. Felix Platter relates his own experience as follows. When a child, he once saw his sister slicing rings of "boiled gorge" (_see note_, below.), and sticking these rings on her finger. The sight was so unpleasant to him that he had to go away. The disagreeable memory has been so persistent, that ever since he has been unable to bear the sight, not merely of such "rings of flesh," but rings of gold, silver, or any other material. A child who has once been frightened by a dog, may ever after be terrified of all dogs. An individual may also, by a kind of moral contagion, be affected by the experiences of others. A child who has seen another child frightened by a cat, may for this reason acquire an antipathy to cats lasting for the whole of life. It is upon the undoubted fact of such experiences as these, that those build their case who maintain that sexual perversions originate in chance impressions during childhood or early youth. But weighty reasons can be alleged against any such generalisation.