ion of the diverse feelings of the
infantile life became formed into one unit, one striving, with one
single aim.

We also added an explanation for the preponderance of perversive
tendencies in the psychoneurotics by recognizing in these tendencies
collateral fillings of side branches caused by the shifting of the main
river bed through repression, and we then turned our examination to the
sexual life of the infantile period.[12] We found it regrettable that
the existence of a sexual life in infancy has been disputed, and that
the sexual manifestations which have been often observed in children
have been described as abnormal occurrences. It rather seemed to us that
the child brings along into the world germs of sexual activity and that
even while taking nourishment it at the same time also enjoys a sexual
gratification which it then seeks again to procure for itself through
the familiar activity of "thumbsucking." The sexual activity of the
child, however, does not develop in the same measure as its other
functions, but merges first into the so-called latency period from the
age of three to the age of five years. The production of sexual
excitation by no means ceases at this period but continues and furnishes
a stock of energy, the greater part of which is utilized for aims other
than sexual; namely, on the one hand for the delivery of sexual
components for social feelings, and on the other hand (by means of
repression and reaction formation) for the erection of the future sexual
barriers. Accordingly, the forces which are destined to hold the sexual
impulse in certain tracks are built up in infancy at the expense of the
greater part of the perverse sexual feelings and with the assistance of
education. Another part of the infantile sexual manifestations escapes
this utilization and may manifest itself as sexual activity. It can then
be discovered that the sexual excitation of the child flows from diverse
sources. Above all gratifications originate through the adapted sensible
excitation of so-called erogenous zones. For these probably any skin
region or sensory organ may serve; but there are certain distinguished
erogenous zones the excitation of which by certain organic mechanisms is
assured from the beginning. Moreover, sexual excitation originates in
the organism, as it were, as a by-product in a great number of
processes, as soon as they attain a certain intensity; this especially
takes place in all strong emotiona