It is in truth no hyperbole on the part of a lover when he calls his beloved's coldness, or the joy of her vanity, which delights in his suffering, _cruelty_. For he has come under the influence of an impulse which, akin to the instinct of animals, compels him in spite of all reason to unconditionally pursue his end and discard every other; he cannot give it up. There has not been one but many a Petrarch, who, failing to have his love requited, has been obliged to drag through life as if his feet were either fettered or carried a leaden weight, and give vent to his sighs in a lonely forest; nevertheless there was only one Petrarch who possessed the true poetic instinct, so that Goethe's beautiful lines are true of him: "Und wenn der Mensch in seiner Quaal verstummt, Gab mir ein Gott, zu sagen, wie ich leide." As a matter of fact, the genius of the species is at continual warfare with the guardian genius of individuals; it is its pursuer and enemy; it is always ready to relentlessly destroy personal happiness in order to carry out its ends; indeed, the welfare of whole nations has sometimes been sacrificed to its caprice. Shakespeare furnishes us with such an example in _Henry VI_ Part III., Act iii., Scenes 2 and 3. This is because the species, in which lies the germ of our being, has a nearer and prior claim upon us than the individual, so that the affairs of the species are more important than those of the individual. Sensible of this, the ancients personified the genius of the species in Cupid, notwithstanding his having the form of a child, as a hostile and cruel god, and therefore one to be decried as a capricious and despotic demon, and yet lord of both gods and men. Συ δ' ὠ θεων τυραννε κ' ἀνθρωπων, Ἐρως. (Tu, deorum hominumque tyranne, Amor!) Murderous darts, blindness, and wings are Cupid's attributes. The latter signify inconstancy, which as a rule comes with the disillusion following possession. Because, for instance, love is based on an illusion and represents what is an advantage to the species as an advantage to the individual, the illusion necessarily vanishes directly the end of the species has been attained. The spirit of the species, which for the time being has got the individual into its possession, now frees him again. Deserted by the spirit, he relapses into his original state of narrowness and want; he is surprised to find that after all his lofty, heroic, and endless attempts to further his own pleasure he has obtained but little; and contrary to his expectation, he finds that he is no happier than he was before. He discovers that he has been the dupe of the will of the species. Therefore, as a rule, a Theseus who has been made happy will desert his Ariadne. If Petrarch's passion had been gratified his song would have become silent from that moment, as that of the birds as soon as the eggs are laid.