persons, through sleeping in the same bed with the latter. What has just been said bears upon the influences which at the opening of this chapter I classed with the second group of the influences affecting the sexual life of the child, namely, those that come into play only after birth. But whatever degree of importance we may attribute to these, it cannot be doubted that congenital predisposition plays a very important part in inducing an early awakening of the sexual life. What we see in this case is similar to what happens in respect of other qualities than the sexual. Some persons are congenitally predisposed to a one-sided development; and in some persons there occurs a phenomenally early development of certain particular talents. It will suffice to remind the reader of children who while still quite young can perform extraordinary arithmetical operations, and of those who at six or seven years of age can play beautifully on the piano or some other instrument. In these latter cases the most important feature is the congenital predisposition, but this predisposition has, of course, to be aroused to activity; and the same is true in the case of the sexual impulse. This explains why it is that the most careful education often fails to prevent the premature commencement of the amatory life; and it explains also, on the other hand, why it is that even in the most unfavourable circumstances, sexual phenomena do not always make their appearance during childhood. I know of persons who have passed the years of childhood in a brothel, amid surroundings obviously calculated to turn their attention to sexuality, but in whom nevertheless during childhood no development of the sexual life appeared to have occurred. The popular saying, "What is bred in the bone will not out of the flesh," may be to some degree an overstatement, but nevertheless corresponds to the actual facts. But we must not go to the other extreme, and refuse to recognise the importance of the influences surrounding the developing child. We must bear in mind that congenital predispositions vary in strength; and a little reflection will convince us that the awakening of the sexual life will be hindered by a favourable environment, but facilitated and accelerated by an unfavourable one. In cases of seduction, the congenital predisposition often plays no more than a secondary part. Sexual acts in childhood resulting from seduction often exhibit a merely imitative character, and do not appear to proceed from an organically conditioned impulse; in such cases the sexual malpractices are often discontinued when the seducing influence is withdrawn; but if this influence is exercised persistently and systematically, it may have a permanent effect even in cases in which the congenital predisposition is slight.