332 THE ASCENT OF MAN 



Love as Humanity, of Love as the pure and un- 

 defiled fountain of all that is eternal in the world. 

 In the long stillness which follows the crisis of 

 Maternity, witnessed only by the new and helpless 

 life which is at once the last expression of the 

 older function and the unconscious vehicle of 

 the new, Humanity is born. By an alchemy 

 which remains, and must ever remain, the secret 

 of Nature, the physiological forces give place to 

 those higher principles of sympathy, solicitude, and 

 affection which from this time onwards are to 

 change the course of Evolution and determine a 

 diviner destiny for a Human Race: 



" Earth's insufficiency 

 Here grows to event ; 

 The indescribable 

 Here it is done; 

 The woman-soul leadeth us 

 Upward and on."^ 



So stupendous is this transition that the mere 

 possibility staggers us. Separated by the whole 

 diameter of conscious intelligence and will, what 

 possible affinities can exist between the Reproduc- 

 tive and the Altruistic process ? What analogy can 

 ever exist between the earlier physiological Struggle 

 for the Life of Others and the later Struggle of 

 Love ? Yet, different though their accompani- 

 ^ Faust, Pt II. Bayard Taylor's tr. 



