The Affections.

*The Affections are distinguished from the Desires*, mainly in these two
particulars: first, that the Desires are for impersonal objects, the
Affections, for persons; and secondly, that the Desires prompt to actions
that have a direct reference to one's self; the Affections, to actions
that have a direct reference to others.

The Affections are *benevolent* or *malevolent*.

1. The *benevolent affections* are Love, Reverence, Gratitude, Kindness,
Pity, and Sympathy.

*Love* needs no definition, and admits of none. It probably never exists
uncaused; though it survives all real or imagined ground for it, and in
some cases seems rendered only the more intense by the admitted
unworthiness of its object. When it is not the reason for marriage, it can
hardly fail to grow from the conjugal relation between one man and one
woman, if the mutual duties belonging to that relation be held sacred. It
is inconceivable that a mother should not love her child, inevitably cast
upon her protection from the first moment of his being; the father who
extends a father's care over his children finds in that care a constant
source of love; and the children, waking into conscious life under the
ministries of parental benignity and kindness, have no emotion so early,
and no early emotion so strong, as filial love. It may be doubted whether
there is among the members of the same family a _natural_ affection,
independent of relations practically recognized in domestic life. It is
very certain that at both extremities of the social scale family affection
is liable to be impaired, on the one hand, by the delegation of parental
duties to hirelings, and, on the other, by the inability to render them
constantly and efficiently. We may observe also a difference in family
affection, traceable indirectly to the influence of climate. Out-of-door
life is unfavorable to the intimate union of families; while domestic love
is manifestly the strongest in those countries where the shelter and
hearth of the common home are necessary for a large portion of the year.

*Friendship* is but another name for love between persons unconnected by
domestic relations, actual or prospective.

*Love for the Supreme Being*, or piety, differs not in kind from the
child's love for the parent; but it rightfully transcends all other love,
inasmuch as the benefits received from God include and surpass all other
benefits. To awake, then, to a consciousness