Later, as poet, story-teller, philosopher, theologian or moralist--as creator of values, in Nietzsche's very forceful expression--the child will usually employ in her honour this language that he receives almost entirely from woman. The larger part of literature is the indirect work of woman, made for her, to please or to pique her, to exalt or to decry her, to touch her heart, to idealize or to curse her beauty and her love. The two sexes had to be thus profoundly dissimilar, foreign, opposite, for one to become the other's adorer. With equality of tastes, of needs, of desires, bodily differences would not have sufficed, nor the injunction of the species. Humanity could perpetuate itself without love;[2] but love would have been impossible without the radical divergences which render man and woman two mutually mysterious worlds. Only the unknown can be adored. There is no longer a religion where there is no longer mystery. In all societies, so long as she is young and beautiful, woman, even when a slave, is the mistress of civilization. The poets, inspired by her grace, heighten this supremacy by making her the theme of their songs; and poetry, which had, at first, no other aim than to tell the joys of possession or the pangs of desire, completed its evolution by creating love. For love, with all the sentiment, the passion, the dream, the happiness, the tears which this word implies, is at bottom a verbal creation and the imaginative achievement of the artists of language. It is through poems, tales, traditional narratives, that ordinary man, inclined to enjoyment only, has learned to love, to enhance infinitely his commonplace joys and futile sorrows. Let us repeat here Nietzsche's saying--the poet has been the creator of sentimental values. But almost as soon as created, they have escaped him. Possessing herself of these new values, woman has turned them into instruments to assure her sovereignty. She has, in all simplicity, culled the fruits of language, her work. How love has evolved under this domination, with all the benefits which have accrued from it, would be a long chapter in the history of civilization. 1901. [1] The idea of thus introducing attention into the world through woman is M. Ribot's, in his _Psychologie de l'attention_. [2] Copulation would have sufficed for that. Life in common, after fertilization, is extremely rare, except among primates and birds. Among carnivorous insects, the union is often mortal for the male whom the stronger female devours. Note.--Philosophic deductions are of value only if they agree exactly with science; but then they have a value. I have therefore availed myself of the opportunity to complete the note on a previous page, concerning the lie considered as a vital reaction. Here is the scientific statement of the question: