290 
PASSIONAL ZOOLOGY. 
whicli wake in the bosom of sleeping nature, at the first rays of 
the Sun, sing the word of love. 
God is one, they say ; and love is His prophet. Happy, thrice 
happy the Earth, that no council of the stars has yet thundered its 
anathema against the immorality of the kisses of the Sun ! 
For that false morality which rules the humanity of the Earth, 
has assigned a larger happiness to the plant and to the mineral than 
to Man; it has not forbidden the plants and minerals to love. For, 
to the shame of this humanity must it be confessed, there have 
been, in its midst, false doctors and false religions to slander and 
anathematize Love, in face of the certificates of the good God — 
of the glorifications of the Sun. There have been, there still are 
odious impostors, who sustain that passion is a snare, a snare that 
God sets for us. 
There are priests who call themselves pious, and who teach that 
the sight of our sufferings is particularly agreeable to this God, who 
takes so much pleasure in tantalizing His poor creatures, and play- 
ing them infernal tricks, that the faithful of this so called good 
God are obliged to supplicate Him each day not to lead them into 
temptation.^ 
^ It is perhaps a stretch of courtesy toward M. Toussenel not to omit such 
passages as the above, which give offense to many, and which are too in- 
complete to explain and justify themselves. It is certain that our passions 
do tempt us often to our ruin, and that none is more disastrous in private 
life than Love, which leads to unions the most ill-assorted in regard to the 
practical necessities and details of life, and most cruelly deceives the fond- 
est and most glowing hopes of happiness. 
Toussenel only means to say that the fault does not lie essentially in the 
passions themselves, but in the absence of social and industrial institu- 
tions adapted to their true demands, and in the existence of false institu- 
tions which pervert them. Love, for instance, does not essentially demand 
exclusive permanent marriage and the isolated household — the institutions 
to which civilization subjects it — or the seraglio and concubinage, the insti- 
tutions to which barbarism subjects it ; and if Love tempts to evil and 
ruin, either by urging individuals under the yoke of a civil and moral bond- 
age, which kills their freedom and spontaneity, or by causing them to break 
themselves in futile rebellions against established custom, it is not the 
fault of Love, but of the poverty and ignorance which establish and toler- 
ate false institutions. In regard to Abraham, and the doctrine of the tempt- 
ing God, it is necessary to recognize that Divine Providence is progres- 
