2 FALLING IN LOVE 



passionate but artificial selection of a fitting partner as the 

 father or mother of future generations. 



Now this is of course a serious subject, and it ought to be 

 treated seriously and reverently. But, it seems to me, Sir 

 George Campbell's conclusion is exactly the opposite one 

 from the conclusion now being forced upon men of science 

 by a study of the biological and psychological elements in 

 this very complex problem of heredity. So far from con- 

 sidering love as a ' foolish idea,' opposed to the best interests 

 of the race, I believe most competent physiologists and 

 psychologists, especially those of the modern evolutionary 

 school, would regard it rather as an essentially beneficent 

 and conservative instinct developed and maintained in us 

 by natural causes, for the very purpose of insuring just 

 those precise advantages and improvements which Sir 

 George Campbell thinks he could himself effect by a con- 

 scious and deliberate process of selection. More than that, 

 I believe, for my own part (and I feel sure most evolution- 

 ists would cordially agree with me), that this beneficent 

 inherited instinct of Falling in Love effects the object it 

 has in view far more admirably, subtly, and satisfactorily, 

 on the average of instances, than any clumsy human 

 selective substitute could possibly effect it. 



In short, my doctrine is simply the old-fashioned and 

 confiding belief that marriages are made in heaven : with 

 the further corollary that heaven manages them, one time 

 with another, a great deal better than Sir George Camp- 

 bell. 



Let us first look how Falling in Love affects the 

 standard of human efficiency; and then let us consider 

 what would be the probable result of any definite conscious 

 attempt to substitute for it some more deliberate external 

 agency. 



Falling in Love, as modem biology teaches us to be- 



