PHILOSOPHY OF LOVE 



always sterile, or capable of only mediocre posterity, it 

 is found that, alone among values, intelligence is not 

 transmitted by generation. Then the circle closes and 

 the same effort ends ceaselessly in the same recommence- 

 ment. However, even here, artificial means intervene, and 

 the transmission of the acquisitions of intelligence is rela- 

 tively assured by all sorts of instruments. This mech- 

 anism, much inferior to carnal generation, permits us, 

 if the most exquisite forms of intelligence disappear as 

 fast as they flower, to preserve at least part of their 

 contents. Notions are transmitted, that is a result, even 

 though most of them are vain, in default of sensibilities 

 sufficiently powerful to assimilate them and make a real 

 life of them. 



Finally, if man ought to abdicate, which seems unlikely, 

 animality is rich enough to raise up an inheritor. The 

 candidates for humanity are in great number, and they 

 are not those whom the crowd supposes. Who knows if 

 our descendants may not some day find themselves faced 

 with a rival, strong and in the flower of youth. Creation 

 has not gone on strike, since man appeared: since making 

 this monster, nature has continued her work: the human 

 hazard might reproduce itself on the morrow. 



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