SIGNIFICANCE OF INVOLUTION 149 



preted to show that the foundations of truth lie deep 

 within the human soul. 



Mate-hunger is the craving for a larger being, and 

 not, as generally considered, for the reproduction of 

 the species. Nature took to propagating only when 

 she found herself unable to realise her purpose 

 through the given individual. She continues to pro- 

 ject life into the future in order to escape immediate 

 dangers or take a new start to the better attaining 

 of her goal. We may have here the key to the de- 

 crease in the birthrate of a people, the nearer it 

 comes to the perfecting of the individual. Nature is 

 sufficiently wise to know that if life is good ; it is good 

 right here and now. The object of life, whatever the 

 form, is the approximation of some ideal. Love, as 

 we have discovered, furthers that purpose; hence 

 love's larger function may well be the arrest of life 

 on the physical plane and its exaltation to a spirit- 

 ual one. From this point of view the term becomes, 

 after the Platonic usage, synonymous with wisdom or 

 beauty. 



The emphasis for both love and loyalty has been 

 placed hitherto on the object. Royce would have 

 the cause all-embracing, compelling, supreme, cer- 

 tain and fit to centralise life; the unification is to 

 come from without and above. If love is, however, 

 the matter of attention it would seem to be, we should 

 be able to say of a man that he is a good lover with- 



