_Development of love in the individual._—The evolutionary trend in this world can be detected not only in the mere preservation, but also in increasing perfection. Not only the preservative instinct, i. e., the will to live and the will to reproduce, has contributed to the advancement of organic life to higher forms, but the two perfective human instincts, i. e., the will to act and the will to rule, have also served as a means for the evolution of human activities, as science, art, economics, etc.[AJ] One of such activities is sentimental love which had to pass through all the different stages of evolution before it reached the complexity of its present structure. Evolution is a truly universal principle. The meaning of life is its advance towards higher forms. There is not a trait, physical, psychical or spiritual that is wholly finished. The higher emotions as love and hate, fear and shame, etc., are not born with the child; they are evolved slowly by degrees. According to Nordau every individual is in love with his own ideal, throughout his entire life. Every man and woman falls in love with the representative identical with, or at least most resembling, his or her ideal. The craving for love is the desire to possess the organic ideal. The ideal of the mate begins to be distinctly evolved by the organism at the time of puberty and is complete only late in life. The ideal, except in its general features, is not stationary; it grows with the individual’s physical and mental development. With the beginning of the material growth of the centre of generation, the imagination begins to receive from the mysterious depths of the cells and tissues the conception of the image of the mate. The organism hears indistinctive voices, all telling the tale of the future partner in life. In this way the image of the ideal grows up in the brain during the individual’s amatory life.