1885. ] Psychology. 821 
They embody the regulating principle for what are called the 
purely selfish or appetent qualities of the mind. 
For the sympathetic qualities, whose selfishness is diffusive, and 
includes good will to one or more other persons, somewhat dif- 
ferent data are necessary. The leading interest in this department 
is that of sex. The metaphysical condition of love, is a pleasur- 
able hyperesthesia connected with the mental or actual image of 
a person of the other sex. The province of ethics, and its appli- 
cation in law in this matter, is the security of the persons interested 
in this property, mental and physical. If this hyperzsthetic state 
were always prominent, because based on sufficient grounds, there 
would be no necessity for laws in the matter, any more than there 
is necessity for laws to compel people to retain a fortune ora 
sound stomach. But in fact this hyperzesthesia sometimes has no 
sufficient raison d’être in the character of its object. Sometimes 
the mental powers are unable to retain it long at a time; and 
some persons have little or no capacity for its metaphysical form. 
For the protection of people who are highly developed in this 
respect, laws have been enacted which punish infringements on 
their rights of property. 
It is, however, evident that these laws may and do work to the 
injury of the people they are designed to protect. This is the 
case, e. g., when persons of great affectional capacity are bound 
to those of little or no capacity. It is the case where a person of 
fine general organization is bound to a person of coarse and brutal 
organization. It is also true where persons of high development 
of sex affection are otherwise of totally diverse and antagonistic 
constitutions. Hence divorce laws for the separation of such ill- 
mated persons have been enacted, and their utility cannot be 
_ denied. 
It is not divorce laws which are to be feared, but something 
which lies deeper; that is the weakening of the metaphysical sex 
interest, and its subordination to lower or less important interests. 
Any system of religion, state policy, or social custom, which tends 
to weaken the force and freedom of conjugal affection, is proba- 
bly the greatest curse that can befall a country. A principal rea- 
son why this is true is because the metaphysical sex interest con- 
stitutes one of the most important stimuli to exertion, and there- 
fore to development. 
One of the causes which destroy this primal source of energy 
and happiness in life, is the prevalence of the idea that the senti- 
ment of love has no real existence; that it is a deception, or at 
best a sensation of short duration. Such a view can only be 
demonstrated in the lives of people in whom the instinct and sen- 
timent are weak or wanting. For such it is doubtless true; but 
debarred by natural incapacity. But well-constituted persons 
frequently adopt the idea on various grounds. The reason why 
