Such love must be proved and purified by the fire of reasoning. It is only possible after a thorough study of the character. The subtle elective affinity, of which we hear so much praised on the lecture platform, on the stage, in the magazines and in the papers, cannot be relied upon; its thrill is uncertain and needs to be tested and corrected by a long trial, whether it is really spiritual kinship or only emotional impulse. If after the veil of fantasy has been removed, the beloved object is still found worthy of the highest and warmest esteem, the emotion will be far nobler than, and different from, the unconscious fondness which overlooks the exact estimation of the beloved. In all love, considered as a virtue or grace, there must always be the conscious will, which is also the foundation of morality. Such love may also reach the highest state of passion, but in distinction from sensual love, it seeks its own happiness _in_ the felicity of the other, and conscious of its own disinterested purity, considers its desires as noble and above general motives of human action. Such emotions can only exist between men and women of pure souls. True love is, therefore, rational, conscious, unselfish, deep, enduring, constant, refined, self-denying, and is willing to make the greatest sacrifices for the sake of the happiness of another. It is conscious altruism, never faltering in its ethical sense of duty. It is love tested and purified in the fire of the intellect; it comes slowly, but it endures; it gives more than it takes, and has a tinge of tender gratitude for a thousand kind actions. It is, therefore, an ideal sentiment which has hitherto been reached only by a very few select. But if we look at love in the light of evolution, when we find how cell-division developed into sexuality, conjugation, permanent mating, sensual love and, finally, into sentimental love, there is reason for hope that the still rare fruits of an apparently more than earthly paradise of love, which only the forerunners of the race have been privileged to gather, will some day, when humanity has reached the state of Nietzsche’s Superman, become the universal food of the human race.