on and prompting of the heart
through the merciful assistance or through the satanic agency?

Consequently, it has become evident that the four criteria or standards of
judgment by which the human mind reaches its conclusions are faulty and
inaccurate. All of them are liable to mistake and error in conclusions.
But a statement presented to the mind accompanied by proofs which the
senses can perceive to be correct, which the faculty of reason can accept,
which is in accord with traditional authority and sanctioned by the
promptings of the heart, can be adjudged and relied upon as perfectly
correct, for it has been proved and tested by all the standards of
judgment and found to be complete. When we apply but one test, there are
possibilities of mistake. This is self-evident and manifest.

We will now consider the subject of love which has been suggested,
submitting it to the four standards of judgment and thereby reaching our
conclusions.

We declare that love is the cause of the existence of all phenomena and
that the absence of love is the cause of disintegration or nonexistence.
Love is the conscious bestowal of God, the bond of affiliation in all
phenomena. We will first consider the proof of this through sense
perception. As we look upon the universe, we observe that all composite
beings or existing phenomena are made up primarily of single elements
bound together by a power of attraction. Through this power of attraction
cohesion has become manifest between atoms of these composing elements.
The resultant being is a phenomenon of the lower contingent type. The
power of cohesion expressed in the mineral kingdom is in reality love or
affinity manifested in a low degree according to the exigencies of the
mineral world. We take a step higher into the vegetable kingdom where we
find an increased power of attraction has become manifest among the
composing elements which form phenomena. Through this degree of attraction
a cellular admixture is produced among these elements which make up the
body of a plant. Therefore, in the degree of the vegetable kingdom there
is love. We enter the animal kingdom and find the attractive power binding
together single elements as in the mineral, plus the cellular admixture as
in the vegetable, plus the phenomena of feelings or susceptibilities. We
observe that the animals are susceptible to certain affiliation and
fellowship and that they exercise natural selection. This elemental
attrac