8 Life and Love. 



Human love has been the poetic theme of man 

 from the beginning, the one imperishable theme, 

 the theme appealing most powerfully to the imagi- 

 nation and the heart, promising solution to the 

 hard problems of life, and offering consolation and 

 satisfaction to the yearning soul. 



Man is ever looking towards the ideal love to 

 lift and save him ; the universal reproductive 

 instinct seems to him to promise continuance and 

 progress to his spirit as well as to his body. 



The primitive form of love, the root from 

 which all love has grown, is the reproductive 

 instinct, the instinct that attracts one sex to the 

 other for the purpose of re-creation. 



From this germinal love has grown and blossomed 

 that altruistic love which finally distinguishes man 

 from all other earthly life. 



The understanding of human love in all its man- 

 ifestations, physical and spiritual, is necessary to 

 the well-being of the world. 



To understand the universality of the reproduc- 

 tive instinct in all the life of the earth, to under- 

 stand the meaning and power of the sex-instinct, 

 the grandeur of the sex-idea, and the immense 

 beauty of its manifestations, — is necessary to the 

 understanding of human love, and is the imme- 

 diate duty of our day. 



To understand love in all its aspects, to know 

 it in its beauty, its greatness, and its power, and 

 to free it from all ideas of grossness and evil is 



