these forces have acted and interacted during the developmental process. The mind of the adult, then, is like the body in bearing traces which betray to the skilled observer the events of its developmental history. Inconspicuous and apparently insignificant structures and peculiarities in the one no less than in the other prove to have had a meaning and a function in the past, however little significance their final form may seem to possess, and thus the psychologist is able to reconstruct the history of a given subject’s mind, although the most important stages of its development are hidden from direct observation as effectively as is the prenatal growth of the body.
It seems to be a fundamental conception of the Freudian system that the development of the mind is accompanied and conditioned by mental conflict. The infant is regarded as being impelled by instinctive impulses which at first are solely egoistic. From the earliest moments of its contact with the world resistance to the full indulgence of these impulses is encountered. With the growth and intensification of such impulses,