[Sidenote: The two chief processes demanding ethical consideration]
Thus it will by now have become amply clear, what, in the main, are the pitfalls to avoid in the course of family life, and what are the chief ends which it is desirable to seek. The weaning of the child from the incestuous love which binds it to the family (together with the secondary hatred which this love may entail) and the gradual loosening of the psychological, moral and economic dependence of the individual on the family have revealed themselves as the two chief aspects of the task with which the ethical treatment of our subject has to deal. The considerations brought forward in the last three chapters have shown that human beings are subject to two opposing tendencies in these respects--one of these tendencies uniting the individual closely to the family, the other separating him sharply from it; both tendencies being conditioned by psychological and biological factors of fundamental significance. It is the duty of a sane and reasonable ethics of the family to indicate the most satisfactory solution of the conflict which these opposing tendencies engender, giving such scope to either tendency as may be necessary for it to fulfil its essential function in the life of the individual and the race.
[Sidenote: The tendencies towards the family more primitive than those away from the family]
[Sidenote: The latter more often require artificial aid]
Our treatment of the subject during the greater part of this book, following as it does the actual findings of those who have been brought face to face with these tendencies in the course of their endeavours to understand and cure the disorders of mental growth and personality, has no doubt conveyed to some extent the impression that it is the first mentioned tendency--that which draws the individual _towards_ the family--which is most often found in excess, and has therefore most frequently to be restrained, while it is the tendency _away_ from the family which is most often deficient in strength or in development, and which therefore most frequently requires artificial stimulation and encouragement. This impression is indeed one that is inevitably conveyed by a careful study of the knowledge that we at present possess upon the subject. In whichever direction we look, Man's chief handicap, as regards those aspects of his mind which here concern us, would appear to consist in an undue strength, or at any rate an undue persistence, of an infantile attitude towards the family. This would seem to indicate that the tendency towards the family is probably both ontogenetically and phylogenetically the older and more fundamental of the two, and that the tendency away from the family is not yet sufficiently deeply rooted or assimilated in the human mental constitution to be able to assert itself with sufficient force in the manner and direction that successful biological adjustment would require.