Brinton.] 54:0 [Nov. 5, 



mologically, therefore, those who love are alike ; they are the 

 same in such respects that they are attracted to one another, on 

 the proverbial principle that " birds of a feather flock together." 



Now turning to the word love, German Liebe, Russian lubov, 

 lubity, we find that it leads us quite a different road. It is traced 

 back without any material change to the Sanscrit lobha, covet- 

 ousness, the ancient Coptic lifts, to want, to desire. In this ori- 

 gin we see the passion portrayed as a yearning to possess the 

 loved object; and in the higher sense to enjoy the presence and 

 sympathy of the beloved, to hold sweet communion with him or 

 her. 



A class of ideas closely akin to this are conveyed in such 

 words as " attached to," " attraction," " affection," and the like, 

 which make use of the figure of speech that the lover is fastened 

 to, drawn toward, or bound up with the beloved object. We 

 often express this metaphor in full in such phrases as "the 

 bonds of friendship," etc. 



This third class of words, although in the history of language 

 they are frequently of later growth than the two former, probably 

 express the sentiment which underlies both these, and that is a 

 dim, unconscious sense of the unity which exists throughout all 

 objective nature, a unity which is revealed to man most per- 

 fectly in the purest and highest love, which at its sublimest 

 height does away with the antagonism of independent personality 

 and blends the I and the Thou in a oneness of existence. 



Although in this, its completest expression, we must seek ex- 

 amples solely between persons of opposite sex, it will be well to 

 consider in an examination like the present, the love between 

 men, which is called friendship, that between parents and chil- 

 dren, and that toward the gods, the givers of all good things. 

 The words conveying such sentiments will illustrate many fea- 

 tures of the religious and social life of the nations using them. 



I. The Algonkin. 



I begin with this group of dialects, once widely spread 

 throughout the St. Lawrence valley and the regions adjoinhig; 

 and among them I select especially the Cree and the Chipeway, 

 partly because we know more about them, and partly because 

 they probably represent the common tongue in its oldest and 



