eelings which arise in connection with it; just as in
the remote past the sense of personality was born as the centre of a new
consciousness, so the individual now undergoes a period of purification
and regeneration; through the love for his mistress he discovers his
inmost self, of which, until now, he had been practically ignorant. The
generative, undifferentiated impulse is supplanted by the love for an
individual and stigmatised as base and contemptible. Guincelli's words
characterising the second erotic stage of the race: _Amor e cor gentil
sono una cosa_, to-day apply to the second stage in the life of the
individual. It also occurs that in the heart of a man whom reality has
failed to satisfy an ideal woman gradually wins life and shape.
Sometimes it is the idealised counterpart of an actual woman, but not
infrequently it is a vague, unsubstantial shadow. Here we have the
deification of the woman reproduced in the heart of the individual. To
illustrate my point, I will quote the very pertinent conversation
between Foldal, the embittered old clerk, and John Gabriel Borkman
(Ibsen).

_Borkman_: Indeed! Can you show me one who is any good?

_Foldal_: That's just the point. The few women I've known are no
good at all.

_Borkman_: (with a sneer) What's the good of them if you don't know
them?

_Foldal_ (excitedly): Don't say that, John Gabriel! Isn't it a
magnificent, an ennobling thought, to know that somewhere, far
away, never mind where, the true woman lives?

_Borkman_ (impatiently): Stop your high falutin' nonsense!

_Foldal_ (hurt): High falutin' nonsense? You call my most sacred
belief high falutin' nonsense?

In conclusion I should like to mention here that I look upon Otto
Weininger as a tragic victim of the second stage of love which--in our
days--is sick with an almost insurmountable inner insufficiency.

There is no need to elaborate my subject further and point out that--the
first stage passed--the prime of life brings with it the fusion of
sexuality and love. This union is the inner meaning of marriage in the
modern sense--whether it is rarely or frequently realised is beside the
point.

In previous chapters I have illustrated various phenomena of the
emotional life by showing their reflections on the lives of two or three
distinguished men. In conclusion I will endeavour to point out the
reproduction of all the erotic stages through which