PHILOSOPHY OF LOVE 



sider that the power of the spermatozoide is precisely the 

 power of exteriorizing a form; and if we consider the lack 

 of any other known substance in nature capable of grow- 

 ing into brain, we are left with only one surprise, or 

 rather one conclusion, namely, in face of the smallness 

 of the average brain's activity, we must conclude that 

 the spermatozoic substance must have greatly atrophied 

 in its change from lactic to coagulated and hereditarily 

 coagulated condition. Given, that is, two great seas of 

 this fluid, mutually magnetized, the wonder is, or at least 

 the first wonder is, that human thought is so inactive. 



Chemical research may have something to say on the 

 subject, if it be directed to comparison of brain and 

 spermatophore in the nautilus, to the viscous binding of 

 the bee's fecundative liquid. I offer only reflections, per- 

 haps a few data. Indications of earlier adumbrations of 

 an idea which really surprises no one, but seems as if it 

 might have been lying on the study table of any physician 

 or philosopher. 



There are traces of it in the symbolism of phallic reli- 

 gions, man really the phallus or spermatozoide charging, 

 head-on, the female chaos. Integration of the male in 

 the male organ. Even oneself has felt it, driving any 

 new idea into the great passive vulva of London, a sen- 

 sation analogous to the male feeling in copulation. 



Without any digression on feminism, taking merely 

 the division Gourmont has given (Aristotelian, if you 

 like), one offers woman as the accumulation of heredi- 

 tary aptitudes, better than man in the "useful gestures," 

 the perfections; but to man, given what we have of his- 

 tory, tl*e "inventions," the new gestures, the extrava- 

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