is so obvious that it hardly needs to be hinted at. If love were
nothing more than a lesson in altruism--with many the first and only
lesson in their lives--it would be second in importance to no other
factor of civilization. Sympathy lifts the lover out of the deep
groove of selfishness, teaching him the miracle of feeling another's
pains and pleasures more keenly than his own. Man's adoration of woman
as a superior being--which she really is, as the distinctively
feminine virtues are more truly Christian and have a higher ethical
value than the masculine virtues--creates an ideal which has improved
women by making them ambitious to live up to it. No one, again, who
has read the preceding pages relating to the treatment of women before
romantic love existed, and compares it with their treatment at
present, can fail to recognize the wonderful transformation brought
about by gallantry and self-sacrifice--altruistic habits which have
changed men from ruffians to gentlemen. I do not say that love alone
is responsible for this improvement, but it has been one of the most
potent factors. Finally, there is affection, which, in conjunction
with the other altruistic ingredients of love, has changed it from an
appetite like that of a fly for sugar to a self-oblivious devotion
like a mother's for her child, thus raising it to the highest ethical
rank as an agency of culture.

We are still very far from the final stage in the evolution of love.
There is no reason to doubt that it will continue to develop, as in
the past, in the direction of the esthetic, supersensual, and
altruistic. As a physician's eye becomes trained for the subtle
diagnosis of disease, a clergyman's for the diagnosis of moral evil,
so will the love-instinct become more and more expert, critical, and
refined, rejecting those who are vicious or diseased. Compare the
lustrous eyes of a consumptive girl with the sparkling eyes of a
healthy maiden in buoyant spirits. Both are beautiful, but to a
doctor, or to anyone else who knows the deadliness and horrors of
tuberculosis, the beauty of the consumptive girl's eyes will seem
uncanny, like the charm of a snake, and it will inspire pity, which in
this case is not akin to love, but fatal to it. Thus may superior
knowledge influence our sense of beauty and liability to fall in love.
I know a man who was in love with a girl and had made up his mind to
propose. He went to call on her, and as he approached the door he