theory that we have
here to do with an acquired perversion. We cannot assume that in this
child the complicated image of the killing of a fowl was inborn, and the
first inference will therefore be that his perversion is purely an
acquired one. But on closer examination we perceive that the matter is
less simple than appeared at first sight. First of all we have to
inquire why it is that in this particular instance the sight of the
killing of a fowl induced such a perversion, when in hundreds of other
cases no such result follows the same stimulus. The assumption that in
the particular case there chanced to occur sexual excitement
simultaneously with the sight of the fowl-killing, is altogether
inadequate as an explanation. For, first, this assumption of the
simultaneous occurrence of sexual excitement is in most cases a pure
supposition, quite unsupported by proof. Secondly, even when the two
processes, the sight of the killing, and the sexual excitement, do occur
simultaneously, it is still open to question whether the latter may not
have been determined by the former; that is to say, it may be that the
perverse mode of sexual sensibility previously existed, at least as a
predisposition, and that the connexion between the phenomena is the
reverse of what is supposed. Thirdly, moreover, the chance view of some
occurrence in association with sexual excitement does not suffice to
explain the enduring association of sexual excitement with such an
occurrence throughout the whole of life. Think of persons who have
masturbated during childhood. When they were masturbating, their eyes
have rested on various indifferent objects: underlinen, articles of
furniture, pictures, books, &c.; but this does not induce the association
throughout life of sexual excitement with the sight of any of these
articles.

Apart from these considerations, the fact that some external process,
such as the killing of a fowl, has important relationships with the
content of a subsequent perversion, does not prove that this perversion
is an acquired one. We may rather suppose that in the case of one
endowed with a congenital predisposition to the excitement of the sexual
impulse by the sight of cruelty, the particular cruel act which will
prove the determinant in a particular case, must depend upon the chance
circumstances of the individual's life. On this view, if, in the case
under consideration, the fowl-killing had not happened, at the
appropriate