In both sets of taboos the presence of hostility towards the king is thus made manifest, the taboos themselves arising chiefly as a result of this hostility and aiming only secondarily, and by way of reaction, at an increase of the king's safety, dignity or happiness.
[Sidenote: Hostility towards and murder of the king]
The reality of this hostile feeling is placed beyond all reasonable doubt when we bear in mind the frequent occurrence of openly cruel practices, such as imprisonment, enforced immobility[158], starvation[159], or even beating[160], especially when we take into consideration the very widespread custom of killing the king at the end of his period of office or as soon as his strength or ability show signs of failing--a sinister theme which Frazer has treated with such charm of manner and such wealth of erudition in the twelve immortal volumes of the Golden Bough. Both on account of the actual nature of many of its manifestations[161] and because of the close unconscious identification of king and father, to which we have already referred, it is evident that this hostility is in many of its aspects a displaced form of the hate elements of the Œdipus complex; the historical, sociological and political bearings of which acquire in this light, and in the light of the other facts and considerations brought forward in this chapter, a new, and in many respects an altogether overwhelming, significance.
[Footnote 140: _Cp._ Ernest Jones, "Papers on Psycho-Analysis," 2nd. ed. 540 ff. for a study of the manner in which restraint of the child in one particular respect--with regard to the excretory functions--may lead to a hostile attitude of this kind on the part of the child.]
[Footnote 141: Thus, as Mr. Burt has suggested to me, the influence of displaced father-hatred is probably in large measure responsible for the fact that strikes and other crude forms of rebellion against authority in industry occur principally among the working classes, where the tyranny of the father is often of a primitive and repressive type. For the same reason the number of delinquents from these classes is almost certainly relatively larger than that from the upper and middle classes, quite apart from the influence of economic and educational factors. _Cp._ too in this connection p. 128 below.]