l. Neither the historian nor the psychologist
will be pleased. Moreover, I am well aware that my standpoint is
hopelessly "old-fashioned." To-day nearly all the world is content to
look upon the sexual impulse as the source of all erotic emotion and to
regard love as nothing more nor less than its most exquisite radiation.

My book, on the contrary, endeavours to establish its complete
independence of sexuality.

My contention that so powerful an emotion as love should have come into
existence in historical, not very remote times, will seem very strange;
for, all outward profession of faith in evolution notwithstanding, men
are still inclined to take the unchangeableness of human nature for
granted.

The facts on which I have based my arguments are well known, but my
deductions are new; it is not for me to decide whether they are right or
wrong. In the first (introductory) part I have made use of works already
in existence, in addition to Plato and the poets, but the second and
third parts are founded almost entirely on original research.

E.L.

CONTENTS

PAGE

PREFACE 5

TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION 9

FIRST STAGE: THE SEXUAL INSTINCT 21

SECOND STAGE: LOVE

CHAPTER

I. THE BIRTH OF EUROPE 39

II. THE DEIFICATION OF WOMAN (FIRST FORM OF
METAPHYSICAL EROTICISM):--(_a_) The Love of the Troubadours;
(_b_) The Queen of Heaven; (_c_) Dante and Goethe;
(_d_) Michel Angelo 115

III. PERVERSIONS OF METAPHYSICAL EROTICISM:--
(_a_) The Brides of Christ; (_b_) Sexual Mystics 217

THIRD STAGE: THE BLENDING OF SEXUALITY AND LOVE

I. THE LONGING FOR THE SYNTHESIS 231

II. THE LOVE-DEATH (SECOND FORM OF METAPHYSICAL EROTICISM) 251

III. THE CONFLICT BETWEEN SEXUALITY AND LOVE.--THE SEEKER
OF LOVE AND THE SLAVE OF LOVE 266

IV. THE REVENGE OF SEXUALITY.--THE DEMONIACAL AND THE OBSCENE 275

CONCLUSION: THE PSYCHOGENETIC LAW.--THE INDIVIDUAL AS AN
EPITOME OF THE HUMAN RACE 284

TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTI