It is not, however, to be expected that the Mind should be able to understand itself, any more than a man can carry himself. We can use no energy superior to the mind by which to consider or examine it. Such inspection is itself only a reflection of Mind, like a face in a glass; it is not, and cannot be, an explanation, for which the necessary higher Intelligence is lacking. If, therefore, we can conceive Man as a spirit expressed in terms of a body (in order, perhaps, that, through another mode of life, spirit may be able to contemplate itself), it follows that all the functions of the body are spiritual, except those that are necessary only to keep the body alive; and of all these functions, surely that which induces spirit to seek spirit-man to seek woman, and woman to seek man-and to live in the most intimate commerce and communion with each other, must be the most spiritual. Moreover, though the spirituality of Love may be hidden from the savage by the illusion of the body, and from those who, though living in the midst of civilisation, are Sec. (b). THE INFLUENCE OF LOVE ON nevertheless still savages, yet (to paraphrase the words of St. Paul) the Body is the Schoolmaster to bring us to Spirit. The passion of the body produces the passion of the mind, if not always in the individual, yet always in the race; and from the passionate mind springs the compassionate mind, the intellect of imaginative tolerance and comprehension,-whereof if more existed in the world, the world would be far other than it is. Metaphysics can always be met by metaphysics, but the beneficent effect of the instinct of Love on the human race is no mystical fancy, but a scientific fact, depending on the law of Natural Selection. Examined scientifically, the instinct of Love is found to be not only the cause of Man's development from an animal state into a god-like state, but the source of the best and larger part of all the joy that there is in the world. As already observed, the desire for joy is common to all men, and plays a great part in determining their destinies. We may take it that it was this desire that caused men to discover that the joy of life was greatly enhanced by treating their women kindly; in other words, that where affection, as well as necessity, was the occasion of a man's union with a woman, the resulting condition was far happier. Com From this a second discovery proceeded as civilisation advanced—namely, that "affection depends in a very high degree upon sympathy. Though distinct aptitudes, these two classes of emotions are most intimately connected; affection is strengthened by sympathy and sympathy by affection. munity of interests, opinions, sentiments, culture, and mode of life, as being essential to close sympathy, are therefore favourable to warm affection. . . . When affection came to play a more prominent part in human sexual selection, higher regard was paid to intellectual, emotional, and moral qualities through which the feeling was chiefly provoked.": 1 Westermarck's History of Human Marriage, pp. 361-362. From the desire, then, of increased joy, by means of Love, has resulted a large proportion of the best and most spiritual blessings of life, to say nothing of the astonishing change thus produced in the position of women, who, for the same reason, "are no longer shut up like an exotic plant in a greenhouse, but allowed to associate freely with men; while the preference given to higher qualities by civilised men contributes much to the mental improvement of race.' "1 But may we not go much farther than this, and rightly attribute all affection to sexual origin? Apart from the obvious source of the mother's delight in her child. (especially when accompanied by the pleasure of suckling) how else could it have entered into the heart of man to love any one but himself? How should he learn to love his neighbour, except by the unavoidable necessity laid upon him of loving him of loving a woman? Surely what appeared to be a mere physical law contained the germ of the highest spiri 1 Westermarck's History of Human Marriage, pp. 361-362. tual altruism, and a creature that first felt the need of fulfilling a female life, in order to fulfil his own, was the ancestor of all those who fulfil their own lives by making others happier. But to this divine process the element of joy is essential. For if the earth were now inhabited by the descendants of vegetable ancestors, according to "the favourite opinion of the Fathers," what could they be (without stopping to inquire what awful kind of gigantic insect was to fertilise them), what could they be, but the same anthropomorphic flowers as their primal progenitors? What possible evolution could have taken place with them, except in colour and shape? It is the joy of sex, the very thing that excites the envy and conscious fear of the ecclesiastic, which generates the charity that he preaches and the intellect that he despises. Religion has no vision of the vast terrestrial Sec. (c). destiny of Man, but is always expecting a catastrophe that shall justify all her errors; and hence she misses the divine significance of Love. "PURITY." |