First and Last Things: A Confession of Faith and Rule of LifeWells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Philosophy
First and Last Things: A Confession of Faith and Rule of Life
Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Conduct of life
I write “may” and temper that sentence to the quality of a possibility
alone. This is only true for those who believe, for those who have
faith, whose lives have been unified, who have found Salvation. For
those whose lives are chaotic, personal loves must also be chaotic; this
or that passion, malice, a jesting humour, some physical lust, gratified
vanity, egotistical pride, will rule and limit the relationship and
colour its ultimate futility. But the Believer uses personal love and
sustains himself by personal love. It is his provender, the meat and
drink of his campaign.
4.2. THE NATURE OF LOVE.
It is well perhaps to look a little into the factors that make up Love.
Love does not seem to me to be a simple elemental thing. It is, as I
have already said, one of the vicious tendencies of the human mind to
think that whatever can be given a simple name can be abstracted as a
single something in a state of quintessential purity. I have pointed out
that this is not true of Harmony or Beauty, and that these are synthetic
things. You bring together this which is not beautiful and that which is
not beautiful, and behold! Beauty! So also Love is, I think, a synthetic
thing. One observes this and that, one is interested and stirred;
suddenly the metal fuses, the dry bones live! One loves.
Almost every interest in one’s being may be a factor in the love
synthesis. But apart from the overflowing of the parental instinct
that makes all that is fine and delicate and young dear to us and to be
cherished, there are two main factors that bring us into love with our
fellows. There is first the emotional elements in our nature that arise
out of the tribal necessity, out of a fellowship in battle and hunting,
drinking and feasting, out of the needs and excitements and delights of
those occupations; and there is next the intenser narrower desirings
and gratitudes, satisfactions and expectations that come from sexual
intercourse. Now both these factors originate in physical needs and
consummate in material acts, and it is well to remember that this great
growth of love in life roots there, and, it may be, dies when its roots
are altogether cut away.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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