LOVE VERSUS FRIENDSHIP. 427 



abandon our view of the personality or individuality 

 of ultimate existence ; indeed, the very fact that 

 human personality is still imperfect is the best 

 testimonial to the value of personality as the ideal 

 {cp. ch. viii. § 19). It is only at first sight that the 

 metaphysic of love can be regarded as conflicting 

 with the universal principle of the development of 

 individuality ; for it also aims at completing a 

 personality. 



But though such an apparent exception ultimately 

 proves the rule, it must yet be admitted to do so by 

 exceptional means, forming a certain antithesis to 

 the other aspects of the evolution of perfect in- 

 dividuals in a perfect society. For it is undeniable 

 that love in its higher developments is an ajiti-sociat 

 force, and that its exclusive attraction contradicts 

 the ideal of a universal harmony of all spirits. 

 Whatever services this passion may have originally 

 rendered in bringing men together, and forming the 

 basis of the social life, it is now antagonistic to the 

 social ideal. A society of lovers would be a ludi- 

 crous impossibility ; for it is the chief symptom of 

 their condition that they are entirely wrapped up 

 in each other, and that the rest of the world does 

 not exist for them. From the social point of view 

 there is something awe-inspiring and terrible in the 

 madness of a passion which teaches men to forget 

 all other ties, the claims of country, friendship, duty, 

 reason. 



And this exclusiveness of the attraction which 

 holds together the human atoms of the sexual dyad 

 becomes particularly clear when we compare love 

 with friendship; i.e., with the feeling which forms 

 the bond of the social union. The charm of friend- 

 ship lies in the play of difference, in the free inter- 



