is time of life,
the psychosexual in especial often plays a great part. If,
notwithstanding all these facts, anyone desires to associate the
beginning or the end of the puberal development, as was formerly done,
with the appearance of "the external signs of puberty," no one can
prevent this usage. But the scientific investigator, the physician, the
schoolmaster, and the parents, should all alike fully understand that
such external processes comprise but a small part of all that
constitutes pubescence. A straining of terminology may at times be
permissible; but on no account must we allow currency to so disastrous
an error as the belief that the sexual life of the child either begins
or is completed with the appearance of these external signs. The sexual
life of the child begins long before, and the puberal development is not
completed till many years after, the appearance of these external signs,
which by most people are erroneously regarded as typical of pubescence.

Although I have detailed a number of phenomena characteristic of the
sexual life of the child, it must not be assumed that these phenomena
are common to all cases, or that every individual symptom is invariably
observed. As I have previously explained, numerous exceptions occur. In
some instances, only one symptom is discernible; in others, another
only. The commonest early manifestations of the sexual life in childhood
are, as was said before, the psychosexual phenomena. _Frequently, the
individual symptoms are so faintly marked that they can be detected only
by a very thorough and careful examination._ I wish merely to insist
upon the fact that during the years of childhood which are commonly
regarded as asexual, manifestations of the sexual life can with care
almost always be detected, although at times their detection is by no
means easy.

In conclusion, however, it is necessary to point out that there are a
certain number of children in whom up to the fourteenth year of life,
and even later, manifestations of the sexual life are hardly
discernible; but we have to remember that the results of castration
prove, as has been shown above, that even when, in early life, the
occurrence of sexual processes cannot be demonstrated, such processes
are nevertheless going on. We meet with individuals in whom, even during
the first years of youth, the development of the sexual life is
extremely backward. There are boys of fifteen or sixteen who from time
to time