276 THE ASCENT OF MAN 



nor in the higher altitudes of the intellect, but 

 in the warm world of the affections. Till he is 

 equipped with these, Man is not human. He reaches 

 his full height only when Love becomes to him the 

 breath of life, the energy of will, the summit of 

 desire. There at last lies all happiness, and good- 

 ness, and truth, and divinity : 



"For the loving worm within its clod 

 Were diviner than a loveless God." 



That Love did not come down to us through 

 the Struggle for Life, the only great factor in 

 Evolution which up ' to this time has been dwelt 

 upon, is self-evident. It has a lineage all its own. 

 Yet inexplicable though the circumstance be, the 

 history of this force, the most stupendous the world 

 has ever known, has scarcely even begun to be 

 investigated. Every other principle in Nature has 

 had a thousand prophets ; but this supreme dynamic 

 has run its course through the ages unobserved ; its 

 rise, so far as science is concerned, is unknown; its 

 story has never been told. But if any phenomenon 

 or principle in Nature is capable of treatment under 

 the category of Evolution, this is. Love is not a 

 late arrival, an after-thought, with Creation. It is 

 not a novelty of a romantic civilization. It is not 

 a pious word of religion. Its roots began to grow 

 with the first cell of life which budded on this 



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