FALLING IN LOVE 9 



say, ' could So-and-so see in So-and-so to fall in love with ? ' 

 This very inexplicability I take to be the sign and seal of a 

 profound importance. An instinct so conditioned, so curious, 

 so vague, so unfathomable, as we may guess by analogy 

 with all other instincts, must be Nature's guiding voice 

 within us, speaking for the good of the human race in all 

 future generations. 



.On the other hand, let us suppose for a moment (im- 

 possible supposition ! ) that mankind could conceivably di- 

 vest itself of ' these foolish ideas about love and the tastes 

 of young people,' and could hand over the choice of partners 

 for life to a committee of anthropologists, presided over 

 by Sir George Campbell. Would the committee manage 

 things, I wonder, very much better than the Creator has 

 managed them ? Where would they obtain that intimate 

 knowledge of individual structures and functions and differ- 

 ences, which would enable them to join together in holy 

 matrimony fitting and complementary idiosyncrasies ? Is 

 a living man, with all his organs, and powers, and faculties, 

 and dispositions, so simple and easy a problem to read that 

 anybody else can readily undertake to pick out off-hand a 

 help meet for him ? I trow not ! A man is not a horse 

 or a terrier. You cannot discern his ' points ' by simple 

 inspection. You cannot see a priori why a Hanoverian 

 bandsman and his heavy, ignorant, uncultured wife, should 

 conspire to produce a Sir William Herschel. If you tried 

 to improve the breed artificially, either by choice from 

 outside, or by the creation of an independent moral senti- 

 ment, irrespective of that instinctive preference which we 

 call Falling hi Love, I believe that so far from improving 

 man, you would only do one of two things either spoil his 

 constitution, or produce a tame stereotyped pattern of 

 amiable imbecility. You would crush out all initiative, 

 all spontaneity, all diversity, all originality ; you would 



