The Oedipus complex, as far as we know, is present in childhood in all human beings, undergoes great alterations during the years of development and in many individuals is found in varying degrees of strength even at a mature age. Its essential characteristics, its universality, its content and its fate were recognized, long before the days of psycho-analysis, by that acute thinker Diderot, as is shown by a passage in his famous dialogue, Le neveu de Rameau: ‘Si le petit sauvage etait abandoné à lui-même, qu'il conservât toute son imbécillité, et qu'il réunît au peu de raison de Penfant au berceau la violence des passions de l'homme de trente ans, il tordrait le col à son père et coucherait avec sa mère.’2