The heart, like reason, pursues the infinite, and the only difference there is in these pursuits is, that sometimes the heart seeks the infinite without knowing that it seeks it, and sometimes it renders to itself an account of the final end of the need of loving what disturbs it. When reflection is added to love, if it finds that the object loved is in fact worthy of being loved, far from enfeebling love, it strengthens it; far from clipping its divine wings, it develops them, and nourishes them, as Plato[72] says. But if the object of love is only a symbol of the true beauty, only capable of exciting the desire of the soul without satisfying it, reflection breaks the charm which held the heart, dissipates the chimera that enchained it. It must be very sure in regard to its attachments, in order to dare to put them to the proof of reflection. O Psyche! Psyche! preserve thy good fortune; do not sound the mystery too deeply. Take care not to bring the fearful light near the invisible lover with whom thy soul is enamored. At the first ray of the fatal lamp love is awakened, and flies away. Charming image of what takes place in the soul, when to the serene and unsuspecting confidence of sentiment succeeds reflection with its bitter train. This is perhaps also the meaning of the biblical account of the tree of knowledge.[73] Before science and reflection are innocence and faith. Science and reflection at first engender doubt, disquietude, distaste for what one possesses, the disturbed pursuit of what one knows not, troubles of mind and soul, sore travail of thought, and, in life, many faults, until innocence, forever lost, is replaced by virtue, simple faith by true science, until love, through so many vanishing illusions, finally succeeds in reaching its true object. Spontaneous love has the native grace of ignorance and happiness. Reflective love is very different; it is serious, it is great, even in its faults, with the greatness of liberty. Let us not be in haste to condemn reflection: if it often produces egotism, it also produces devotion. What, in fact, is self-devotion? It is giving ourselves freely, with full knowledge of what we are doing. Therein consists the sublimity of love, love worthy of a noble and generous creature, not an ignorant and blind love. When affection has conquered selfishness, instead of loving its object for its own sake, the soul gives itself to its object, and miracle of love, the more it gives the more it possesses, nourishing itself by its own sacrifices, and finding its strength and its joy in its entire self-abandonment. But there is only one being who is worthy of being thus loved, and who can be thus loved without illusions, and without mistakes, at once without limits, and without regret, to wit, the perfect being who alone does not fear reflection, who alone can fill the entire capacity of our heart. Mysticism corrupts sentiment by exaggerating its power.