ABSTRACT
On each level of infantile sexual development the aggressive instinct appears in a different form, always closely linked with the sexual urges. We do not know whether it takes its cue from them, whether the level of sexuality reached colours the form taken by the aggressive urge or whether it is the other way round, with definite stages of aggression giving a particular character to the levels of sex development. Much of it has been confirmed from direct observation, and much has been found from adults, normal and abnormal. This is because the fate of the instinctual energy does not only determine character formation, which means the development of the child in the early years, it also determines normality, the abnormality, the happiness, and the unhappiness—of the adult human being. So the phases of development in the child's love for the mother reflect at one and the same time the whole range of possibilities of disturbance in adult love relationships.
