On the moral side, again, he is at first almost entirely dependent on the judgment of others. He hears certain tendencies, activities and sentiments condemned as wicked, others upheld as praiseworthy, and even when he begins to pronounce moral judgments on his own account, these judgments must, for a long period, consist for the most part merely of fresh applications of the moral code that he has learnt from others.
This subservience to the will and opinion of others (and especially to those of the parents) is a necessary and natural condition of early childhood, but it is plain that the successful development of mind and character must demand a gradually increasing degree of autonomy as regards both thought and conduct, as capabilities mature and experience widens. Success in adult life requires the capacity for determining for oneself the nature and course of the principal activities—indeed, the degree of success that is attained is to a very considerable extent dependent on the amount of such capacity. He who can only carry out the instructions of others, however obediently and skilfully, is only fitted to occupy an inferior position in the economic or the social scale. Hence, one who has never progressed far from the infantile condition of dependence on the commands and opinions of others will be lacking in one of the character qualities which are essential for the attainment of any high degree of individuality or of social and economic responsibility.
On the moral side also, he is debarred from the higher Autonomy and Moral Development levels of ethical development. At the best, his morality will be one of hard and fast rules, the dictates of parental, ecclesiastical, legal or social authority, incapable of enlightened growth or modification to suit the ever changing flow of circumstances and the widening experience of life. At the worst, he may grow up destitute of all true moral consciousness whatsoever, morality being regarded by him as a certain (usually unpleasant) kind of conduct, arbitrarily imposed by external authority, and only fit to be abandoned as soon as the pressure of this authority is relaxed.
Sound moral development is characterised by an ever increasing degree of autonomy in place of the heteronomy which distinguishes the immature, and to some extent, the primitive mind generally. At first the child learns to act in accordance with the desires of its parents, as expressed in threats, punishments or rewards. Thereafter, the idea of "good," as signifying conduct in accordance with these desires, becomes operative as an inner motive force in the mind of the child, independently of the occurrence of the rewards or other incentives. This is the first stage of autonomy. As development proceeds, the ideas concerning right conduct (continually enlarged by the experience of new persons and new situations) become more and more dissociated from their original authoritative sanctions, new "inner" sanctions being substituted for the old "external" ones which are abandoned. These inner sanctions are themselves capable of many different levels of development, ranging from the simple idea of the individual's own benefit in the immediate future, to the desire for the ultimate benefit of humanity as a whole or the concept of action in conformity with the general principles of the Universe. If the individual is to progress satisfactorily from the stage of outer sanctions to that of inner sanctions and to attain in due course to the higher levels of these inner sanctions, he must have opportunities for the gradual development of his own powers of initiation, deliberation and self-control; this implying a corresponding gradual emancipation from the jurisdiction of the parents and their substitutes in later life (teachers, advisers, superiors, etc.), until there is obtained at full growth the completest possible autonomy of thought and action that is compatible with the individual's position in the society to which he belongs.
In these considerations we have throughout laid the Autonomy should come about gradually principal emphasis upon the desirability and necessity of the acquirement of self help and self guidance on the part of the individual. This has been chiefly because the results of psycho-analytic work have indicated that the danger lies most frequently in the direction of too great, rather than of too little, dependence on the efforts and guidance of the parents or their substitutes. This fact must not however be allowed to blind us to the existence of a danger of an opposite character—that of a too rapid or too complete emancipation from parental authority. Such emancipation would, it is true, seem to occur seldom enough as a direct consequence of the unfolding of the child's individual capabilities and desires: the attitude of dependence necessarily adopted in childhood and early youth, together with the respect almost inevitably inspired in the very young by the greater power, knowledge and experience of the parents, effectually prevents this in the majority of cases. But it may easily come about as the result of a reaction against a too and not suddenly as the consequence of a revolt against parental authority insistent or despotic use of the parental power. Parents who are too severe, too repressive, or even too careful, as regards the upbringing of their children, will—especially if the latter happen to possess strong tendencies to self-assertion—often bring about a state of revolt against their own authority, in which all that may be good and wise in that authority is deliberately neglected or condemned, since the children have grown to look upon their parents as tyrants and taskmasters rather than as helpers and protectors. A stern or bullying father, a nagging or over anxious mother, will thus frequently produce a rebellious son or daughter, who will respect neither the advice or commands of the parents themselves nor those of their (mental) substitutes in later life. Such children, as they grow up, may be prevented from profiting to the desirable extent by the wisdom and experience of past ages, as represented in the traditions and dictates of authority, and (what is worse) may even become unfit for taking their place in any scheme of harmonious social life, through inability to submit to the degree of individual subordination, which such social life inevitably demands[31].
These considerations with reference to the growth of the The wider social bearings of this subject individual personality in relation to the family environment are indeed, as we have already pointed out, for the most part of a sufficiently obvious character and, in their more general bearings at any rate, have for some time been commonplaces in certain schools of social, ethical, and educational thought. Where modern psychology (and particularly the work of the Zürich school) has been of service, is in drawing attention to the importance of the family as the environment in which the first steps in the path of self help and self guidance must take place—steps upon the direction and extent of which subsequent progress in the wider spheres of scholastic, social and political life very greatly depends. The rapidity with which, and the extent to which, a child attains to independence in relation to his family, are to a large extent prophetic of the subsequent attainment of independence towards the world at large. A too close reliance upon the ideals, standards, conventions and protective power of the family circle may hinder all initiative and originality in individual thought and action. On the other hand, a too sudden or too complete revolt from the parental guidance and tradition may be productive of a bias against, and disrespect for, every kind of authority and convention, that will tend to prevent all use and enjoyment of the experience of the past and all orderly co-operation in the social life of the present. With these possibilities as the result of failure, the task of the proper upbringing of the child in relation to his family environment becomes indeed one the importance of which can scarcely be exaggerated.
CHAPTER VI
ABNORMALITIES AND VARIETIES OF DEVELOPMENT—LOVE AND HATE
Up to this point, in studying the process of individual The study of the abnormal in Psychology development in relation to the family environment, we have as far as possible confined our attention to the more normal aspects of this process, neglecting for the most part the many variations and aberrations to which it is liable. It is now time to explore more carefully some of the more important of these byways into which the human mind may wander in the course of its development—byways which we have hitherto passed unnoticed, or at most examined with a hasty glance, as we traced the direct path of emotional development from childhood to maturity. Some of these byways lie near to the direct path which we have already followed; others depart more widely from it, approaching near to, or sometimes definitely entering, the region of the abnormal or pathological.