LECTURE IV.

CLASSIFICATION OF THE LOVES; AND THE WORLD'S VIEW OF

MARRIAGE.

THE division of mind, into Love, Knowledge, and Wisdom, is no longer of service to our purpose; although it is well to keep distinctly in remembrance the relation these departments sustain to each other-taken in connection with the indispensable functions they perform in the mental constitution. Our subject, expanding as it opens, has now conducted us to a position where it can have but one claim upon our attention— namely, the natural action, the extreme action, and the inverted action of the Love Principle.

The Love principle, as already affirmed, is the principle of life. Life and Love are identical in essence. But the Principle takes on innumerable forms of manifestation. Each form receives from man a distinct name; each hath its own wants and laws; plays different parts in the drama of life; and hath separate joys and separate miseries. Hence the soul is endowed with manifold sympathies-feels more or less intimately related to all forms and conditions of existence-related, and knows no bounds thereof. The movement of these relations is constant and stupendous; they swell silently, continuously, and blend in unbroken waves of progression. I speak now of the naturally-developed and high-conditioned soul-of its actual experiences; as beautifully typical of all natures, and from which all may take infinite courage and hope.

By reason of these various forms and modifications of the Love principle-springing as they do from the one great Central Source of Life within the Universe-the soul extemporizes desires in all directions, and finds eventually that which is desired. Perhaps I should affirm rather, that the loves of the soul are so many specific unmistakable demonstrations of the existence (somewhere) of those things and conditions for which they individually and unabatedly yearn. Supplies shall be proportionate to demands; and gratifications shall be commensurate with desires. This is a fixed fact in natural processes. Lungs demand the vivifying air; therefore air exists. Bodies demand nourishment; therefore food exists. Souls demand moral and intellectual and social sympathies; therefore these affinities exist. The same is true of all human desires. There is meat for the hungry; water for the thirsty; alcohol for the inebriate; poison for the suicide; coffee and tea for those who desire; tobacco for the chewer and snuff-taker; all forms of depravity and vulgarity for the sensual and undeveloped. On the spiritual scale this law is not less complete. There is love for the loving; truth for the truth-seeker; philosophy for the philosophical; angels for angel-worshippers; an eternal life for the immortal soul; and a God-Fountain for its sustenance and unweariable aspirations. In a word, the adaptations of creation are perfect; nothing exists without serving and subserving itself and every other thing.

An accurate treatment of our subject requires throughout this distinction—namely: that the Loves of man's nature are different from moral affinities or intellectual sympathies, both in position and manifestations; yet, as already said, all sympathies and loves are primarily and essentially identical. The Loves, properly so called, belong exclusively to the Life-department of the mental economy; and are thence manifested, harmoniously or discordantly, strictly in accordance with the shaping influence,

of both hereditary proclivities and subsequent contiguous cir

cumstances.

One only of these Loves-lying at the basis of life and society; an unseen river daily driven onward by its own mysterious tides; operating at all times with equal power for the production of happiness or misery; folding in its loving luxurious arms every person at some period; an unsolved problem, ever filled with solemnity, and presenting resistless attractions to all men; self-propulsive and apparently unmanageable; yet, familiar as the trees in the fields, sweet as the air of heaven, and holy as the spirit of Truth-this Love shall receive our devotional regard and intellectual consideration.

Some preliminary definitions, however, are first required: to bring this individual Love clearly before the intellectual faculties. But let me remark, to begin with, that I do not affect to be enough infallible to save you the necessity of personal investigation. For I verily believe that, if all the things in the world which I do not yet comprehend, were duly classified and recorded, the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. In all things, therefore, I leave an abundance of work unfinished; perhaps, unsuggested.

Hitherto I have spoken in general of the Love Department of man's nature; now we must become more analytical. The Love-principle is divisible into six forms or modes of manifestation. These forms I will briefly define, that you may all the more clearly see what direction my discourses will soon take.

The first and lowest is self-love. This love is the grand central element; the hidden day-spring, of individual life. Selflove, in its natural state and normal action, is the soul's especial guardian. SELF is the only court of appeal from without. Jesus tells you to love your neighbor as your "self”—making individual conscientiousness the standard of judgment. Self-love is the pivot on which the spiritual mechanism revolves; it is

the foundation of the living entity; the source of all known instincts. Desires of self-protection and self-preservation spring from thence. It fixes, in a certain mysterious manner, the eternal continuation of the Individual. But all the loves, though intrinsically pure and perfective, are capable of misdirection; are given, as Christians would say, "to sins and evil." The causes I will not now explain. There are two kinds of misdirection each with different degrees; and developing therefrom different results. One is Extremism; the other, Invertionism. Let me explain :—

An extreme action of self-love, for example, gives rise to isolated excesses. The person is avaricious; replete with extravagant wants and superficial desires. He feels very sensitive about "mine"-personal possessions. Self-interests are ever uppermost in his thoughts and actions.

Self-love inverted gives rise, on the contrary, to personal neglect; to carelessness, waywardness, disregard of life, and possessions; slothfulness or indolence, and all the inharmonies which flow from the absence of a healthy self-interest and preservation.

The next ascending form is Conjugal Love. Conjugal love differs from self-love. It elevates the mind above the plane or sphere of self-efforts and endeavors for self-happiness. In a natural state of development, it urges the soul to seek its counterpart or equivalent; it alone prescribes and compels, and, with refined natures, sanctifies the marriage relation between the sexes. It is this principle which informs all the remaining portions of the soul, that self-existence is but half-existence — that self-doing is but half-doing-that a bird with a single wing can not fly-that an equilibrium in life must be had; and Conjugal Love is the only power in man's nature that can prescribe the conditions which will lead to these results. Without this love there would be no marriage in the universe-no union of soul

with soul-nothing known of the family relation; nothing of home of its hidden charms and interior enchantments.

The extreme action of conjugal love leads to excessive sensualism. It disregards individual attachment to the opposite sex; it becomes inconstant, promiscuous, omnigamic, lascivious, profligate, vulgar; and ignores and ridicules the civilized marriage relation of one man with one woman.

The inverted action of this love, on the other hand, is indicated by a cold, foreign, uncompanionable deportment. It begets an unjust repugnance to the opposite sex. History has recorded examples; both male and female. It leads to a love of solitude; to a lonely disposition; to self-pollution; to all the physiological vices hereafter to be described. In young and middle-aged persons the exhibitions are similar.

The third and succeeding form is Parental Love. This love is a further development of the life-department of the soul. Conjugal love embosoms this; hence, its intimate connection. Parental love is a love by itself. It hath its own demands; its own laws; its own methods of fulfilment. Children can only fully gratify it; though sometimes it takes on vicarious forms of action. This love brings the wife into the relation of mother; the husband into the relation of father. This is the natural action.

An extreme action of Parental Love manifests itself in a passionate fondness for children as such-regardless of their color, fortune, or parentage. It feels no limits in its attachment to pets and diminutive things.

An inverted action is seen in a dislike to the young. The person will shun the presence of children—seeing no attractive beauty in them-hearing no gleeful music in their joyous laughter-recognising no sense in their plays—and, giving up to fitful impatience, wishes them out of existence. It sometimes suggests and leads to infanticide.