the impotent philosophy of the East which
exalts non-existence above existence (that is to say, individual
existence). For the essence of the love-death is contained in the
determination of personality to realise itself in a new and positive
form of existence. It is felt as the final synthesis, exactly as (in
other spheres) the union of the ideal with the personal is seen as the
perfection of human life. How would it be possible at once to annihilate
and to transcend the individual soul, the source of personal love, if
this soul were not first presupposed as the essential and supreme value?
Where personal love does not exist, as in the Orient and Japan, the
thought of the love-death would be an absurdity. The burning of Indian
widows is a phenomenon widely differing from the love-death. The Indian
widow slavishly abandons a life which has become aimless through her
master's death; she does not make a sacrifice in the true sense of the
word, and is not actuated by love.

The complete unity of the lovers is possible on earth for a brief hour
and it will, in most cases, satisfy erotic yearning. It can be realised
in two ways: by the blissful rest of the lovers in each other, which
silences all desires and apparently robs time of its tyranny.

The heart is still, and nothing can disturb
The deepest thought, the thought to be her own.

says Goethe; and a newer poet:

Close around me, wondrous being,
Wind thy magic veil oblivion,
All my heart from unrest freeing,
Let there be untroubled calm.

Give me peace; the helter skelter
Of the wide world has gone by;
And this narrow, silent shelter
Holds the potent healing balm.

By the side of this idyllic consummation of the longing for love, there
is the other, the ecstatic consummation of mutual rapture. It almost
blots out individual consciousness in the singly (no longer doubly)
felt, body and soul entrancing ecstasy; it is such sheer delight that
pleasure is no longer perceived as a distinct element, but rather is
there the consciousness of a complete transformation of life. Pleasure,
which, a great psychologist maintains, "craves eternity" is annihilated
in its perfection, knows no more of itself, and is a part of the lovers'
sense of complete unity. It does not "crave eternity"; such a craving is
its last stage but one, the outer court (further than which Nietzsche as
far as eroticism is concerned never penetrated); in