SIGNIFICANCE OF INVOLUTION 147 



the display of brilliant colors or astonishing poses 

 and movements. And is not the same true of the hu- 

 man species with possibly a reversal of subject 

 and object? In this connection it is to be noted that 

 voluntary attention was first manifested in woman; 

 hence her development toward constancy in love has 

 been of longer standing than man's. Voluntary at- 

 tention is a sociological phenomenon because it is the 

 result of discipline and habit ; likewise is stability in 

 matters erotic. 



But if sexual love has had its significance for the 

 race, it has had a far greater significance for the in- 

 dividual. The growth of consciousness, or person- 

 ality, is a constructive, organising process demand- 

 ing a synthesis for its formation. This the individ- 

 ual is rarely able to hold of himself ; he falls short of 

 his ideal in act or thought, and so loses his bear- 

 ings self-ward. It is the sacred office of love to 

 bridge this gap between the real and the ideal. In 

 ordinary friendship the individual is able to reveal 

 only that aspect of his personality which he feels will 

 be understood and so falls short of that complete 

 self-realisation for which the ego is ever striving 

 a pain for which Eugene Delacroix says he knows 

 only one remedy, " une Spouse qui est de votre force." 

 Referring to this, Ellen Key says very truly, " The 

 sense of home in another soul is what gives love its 

 chastity." When she adds, though, that woman 

 must convert man not to the duty of monogamy but 



