The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Evolution of Love, by Emil Lucka

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Title: The Evolution of Love

Author: Emil Lucka

Translator: Ellie Schleussner

Release Date: February 7, 2006 [EBook #17699]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE

BY
EMIL LUCKA

TRANSLATED BY
ELLIE SCHLEUSSNER

[Illustration: Publisher's logo]

LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD.
RUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C.1

_First published in Great Britain 1922_

(_All rights reserved_)

_Printed in Great Britain by_
UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, LONDON AND WOKING

PREFACE

The object of this book, which is addressed to all cultured men and
women, is to set forth the primitive manifestations of love and to throw
light on those strange emotional climaxes which I have called
"Metaphysical Eroticism." I have taken no account of historical detail,
except where it served the purpose of proving, explaining and
illustrating my subject. Nor have I hesitated to intermingle
psychological motives and motives arising from the growth and spread of
civilisation. The inevitable result of a one-sided glimpse at historical
facts would have been a history of love, an undertaking for which I lack
both ability and inclination. On the other hand, had I written a merely
psychological treatise, disregarding the succession of periods, I should
have laid myself open to the just reproach of giving rein to my
imagination instead of dealing with reality.

I have availed myself of historical facts to demonstrate that what
psychology has shown to be the necessary phases of the evolution of
love, have actually existed in historical time and characterised a whole
period of civilisation. The history of civilisation is an end in itself
only in the chapter entitled "The Birth of Europe."

My work is intended to be first and foremost a monograph on the
emotional life of the human race. I am prepared to meet rather with
rejection than with approva