I have now recounted a number of cases in which the perversions observed in adults can be traced back to early childhood. I have shown that it remains doubtful, when the specific perversion first makes its appearance, whether it results from a congenital predisposition which is merely aroused to activity by an outward stimulus, or whether the outward stimulus is also the true determinant. A further point has now to be considered, and it is one which, as far as I know, has hitherto been completely ignored in the literature of the subject. The majority of sexual perverts trace back the origin of their perversion to a time at which the detumescence impulse had not yet been awakened. Thus, the homosexual tells us of a peculiar impulse he felt in childhood to kiss his tutor; we learn from the hair-fetichist that when still a child he loved to play with girls' hair; and so on. And we are told that these impulses, voluptuously tinged, occurred at a time when erection and ejaculation had not yet taken place, and that there was not as yet any of that peripheral voluptuous sensation which can be clearly differentiated from the purely psychical voluptuous sensation. The question then arises, was this voluptuous sensation excited during childhood of a truly sexual nature at this early age? Was the boy's impulsive desire to kiss his tutor a sexual impulse? From the fact that later in life such an impulse is unmistakably sexual, the conclusion is often drawn that the earlier inclinations, and the pleasurable sensations associated with the corresponding mental processes, were also sexual. The inference is an obvious one, and is doubtless justified in many instances. But the following point must be taken into consideration. It is a fact that the psychosexual processes of the child are less sharply differentiated from other psychical processes than is the case in the adult; and it is therefore possible that the specific sexual perversions, and the specific sexual sensibility, develop out of a corresponding sensibility in the child which is not yet of a sexual character. The observation of Stanley Hall[59] that children display a peculiar interest, not only in their own feet, but also in the feet of other persons, would appear to confirm this view. He writes: "Quite small children often display a marked fondness for stroking the feet of others, especially when these feet are well formed; and many adults testify to the persistence of such an impulse, whose gratification gives them a peculiar pleasure." It may readily be supposed, in many cases of foot-fetichism, that this unmistakably sexual phenomenon has originally developed out of such a non-sexual fondness for feet.