ive works on suicide, and even
in those dealing especially with suicide in children, I have been able
to find comparatively little material bearing on this particular
question. Brierre de Boismont,[91] indeed, tells us that children
occasionally commit suicide on account of jealousy; here, however, he
does not refer to sexual jealousy, but to jealousy of a more general
character aroused by preference shown to another child. Although such
serious consequences occur chiefly or exclusively in children who cannot
be regarded as perfectly normal, it is nevertheless possible for erotic
influences to act as the final determinant. But such serious results are
certainly comparatively rare.

Just as in former times masturbation was believed to be the cause of all
kinds of illness, so to-day, according to Freud[92] and his followers,
the general sexual experiences of children are responsible for various
subsequent illnesses. Four neuroses (neurasthenia, anxiety-neurosis,
hysteria, and compulsion-neuroses) are referred by Freud to all sorts of
disturbances of the sexual life, past or present. Hysteria and
compulsion-neuroses are regarded as a reaction to the sexual experiences
of childhood; neurasthenia and anxiety-neurosis are referred to later
sexual experiences. Freud originally assumed that during the childhood
of hysterical patients sexual seduction by adults or by older children
played the chief part; but at a later date he has advocated the view
that the imaginative activities of the days of puberty, which intervene
between the sexual experiences of childhood and the appearance of the
hysterical symptoms, are responsible for the occurrence of the latter.
Quite recently, Abraham[93] has insisted that a sexual experience may be
of some importance in relation even to the onset of dementia praecox. But
I do not consider that Freud's assumption is justified, nor do I think
that he adequately excludes the effects of hetero-and auto-suggestion.
It is out of the question that in every case of the above-mentioned
neuroses, sexual experiences should be the cause; and it is equally
erroneous to suppose that every sexual experience in childhood has the
effects which he assumes. It is true that Freud and his followers report
cases which they regard as proving their thesis. But I am by no means
satisfied with these clinical histories. They rather produce the
impression that much in the alleged histories has been introduced by the
suggesti