concern him that he will soil his bed; all
he cares for is not to lose the subsidiary pleasure while defecating.
The educators have again the right inkling when they designate children
who withhold these functions as bad. The content of the bowel which is
an exciting object to the sexually sensitive surface of mucous membrane
behaves like the precursor of another organ which does not become active
until after the phase of childhood. In addition it has other important
meanings to the nursling. It is evidently treated as an additional part
of the body, it represents the first "donation," the disposal of which
expresses the pliability while the retention of it can express the
spite of the little being towards its environment. From the idea of
"donation" he later gains the meaning of the "babe" which according to
one of the infantile sexual theories is acquired through eating and is
born through the bowel.

The retention of fecal masses, which is at first intentional in order to
utilize them, as it were, for masturbatic excitation of the anal zone,
is at least one of the roots of constipation so frequent in neuropaths.
The whole significance of the anal zone is mirrored in the fact that
there are but few neurotics who have not their special scatologic
customs, ceremonies, etc., which they retain with cautious secrecy.

Real masturbatic irritation of the anal zone by means of the fingers,
evoked through either centrally or peripherally supported itching, is
not at all rare in older children.

*The Activity of the Genital Zone.*--Among the erogenous zones of the
child's body there is one which certainly does not play the main role,
and which cannot be the carrier of earliest sexual feeling--which,
however, is destined for great things in later life. In both male and
female it is connected with the voiding of urine (penis, clitoris), and
in the former it is enclosed in a sack of mucous membrane, probably in
order not to miss the irritations caused by the secretions which may
arouse the sexual excitement at an early age. The sexual activities of
this erogenous zone, which belongs to the real genitals, are the
beginning of the later normal sexual life.

Owing to the anatomical position, the overflowing of secretions, the
washing and rubbing of the body, and to certain accidental excitements
(the wandering of intestinal worms in the girl), it happens that the
pleasurable feeling which these parts of the body are capable of
p