them in a coherent argument.

I have stated, in so many words, that there are two functions common to
all life--nutrition and reproduction. Of this you have missed the
significance in your rejection of my definition of love, so I must
explain further. Unless these two functions be carried on, life must
perish from the planet. Therefore they are the most essential concerns
of life. The individual must preserve its own life and the life of its
kind. It is more prone to preserve its own life than the life of its
kind, less prone to sacrifice itself for its species. So natural
selection has developed a passion of madness which forces the individual
to make the sacrifice. In all forms of life below man the struggle for
existence is keen and merciless. The least weakness in an individual is
the signal for its destruction. Therefore it is counter to the welfare
of the individual to do aught that will tend to weaken it. On the other
hand, the law is that the individual must procreate. But procreation
means a weakening and a temporary state of helplessness. Problem: How
may the individual be brought to procreate? to do that which is inimical
to its welfare? Answer: It must be forced by something deeper than
reason, and that something is unreasoning passion. Did the individual
reason on the matter, it would certainly abstain. It is because the
passion is not rational that life has persisted to this day. Man, coming
up from the walks of lower life, brought with him this most necessary
passion. Developing imagination, he commingled the two; love was the
product.

Now, because of our imagination, do not let us confuse the issue. The
great task demanded of man is reproduction. He is urged by passion to
perform this task. Passion, working through the imagination, produces
love. Passion is the impelling factor, imagination the disturbing
factor; and the disturbance of passion by imagination produces love.

Stripped of all its superfluities, what function does love serve in the
scheme of life? That of reproduction. Nay, now, do not object, Dane; for
you state the same thing, though less clearly, in your own definition of
love. You say, "Love is the awakening of the personality to the beauty
and worth of some one being" and is a desire to merge the life with that
of the beloved being. In other words, your definition tells that the
passion for perpetuation is the cause of love, and perpetuation the end
to be accomplished. Thus nature tr