so wide apart that they can never be united.
What is true of pursuit cannot be true of possession, no more than the
child, grasping the bright ball, can deem it the most wonderful thing in
the world--an appraisement which it certainly made when the ball was
beyond reach.

Let us suppose the loved one is as madly impelled toward the lover. In a
few days, in an hour, nay, in an instant--for there is such a thing as
love at first sight--this man and woman, two unrelated individuals, who
may never have seen each other before, conceive a passion, greater,
intenser, than all other affections, friendships, and social relations.
So great, so intense is it, that the world could crumble to star-dust so
long as their souls rushed together. If necessary, they would break all
ties, forsake all friends, abandon all blood kin, run away from all
moral responsibilities. There can be no discussion, Dane. We see it
every day, for love is the most perfectly selfish thing in the universe.

But this is easily reconcilable with the scheme of things. The true
lover is the child of nature. Natural selection has determined that
exogamy produces fitter progeny than endogamy. Cross fertilisation has
made stronger individuals and types, and likewise it has maintained
them. On the other hand, were family affection stronger than love, there
would be much intermarriage of blood relations and a consequent
weakening of the breed. And in such cases it would be stamped out by the
stronger-breeding exogamists. Here and there, even of old time, the wise
men recognised it; and we so recognise it to-day, as witness our bars
against consanguineous marriage.

But be not misled into the belief that love is finer and higher than
affection and friendship, that the yielding to its blandishments is
higher wisdom on the part of our lovers. Not so; they are puppets and
know and think nothing about it. They come of those who yielded likewise
in the past. They obey forces beyond them, greater than they, their
kind, and all life, great as the great forces of the physical universe.
Our lovers are children of nature, natural and uninventive. Duty and
moral responsibility are less to them than passion. They will obey and
procreate, though the heavens roll up as a scroll and all things come to
judgment. And they are right if this is what we understand to be "the
bloom, the charm, the smile of life."

Yet man is man because he chanced to develop intelligence instead of
in