may also imply an instinct developed in the course of generations, tending to the preservation of the best peculiarities in a class or a race. Since Christianity and the civilisation influenced by it modestly veiled the natural mission of love and obscured it by transcendentalism, mankind began to be ashamed even of self-examination or self-confession in this relation. We ought again to pay attention to family history, though not to such as used to be recorded in old family Bibles, with the dates of birth, marriage, and death, but such a history as should include the circumstances which determined birth and death. We must resume the casting of horoscopes, but not so much according to the signs in the heavens—although perhaps these will regain something of their former importance—as according to those on earth; and not only from the signs at birth but from those long previous to it. Just as alchemy became chemistry and astrology led to astronomy, it is possible that such a reading of signs might prepare the way for what we may call—while waiting for a word of more extended meaning than Galton’s eugenics or Haeckel’s ontogony—erotoplastics: the doctrine of love as a consciously formative art, instead of a blind instinct of procreation. It would be of infinitely greater significance for humanity if the majority of the women, who now translate their experiences into half-candid and wholly inartistic fiction, were to write down for the benefit of science entirely true family chronicles and perfectly frank confessions. It is certain even now that the customs and ways of thought, the artistic and emotional tendencies, which make up the atmosphere of love, unconsciously operate upon its selection to the advantage of the race. This also involves the possibility of such influence becoming conscious, when once it is clearly seen in what direction it ought to go, which are the spiritual and bodily properties that it is desired to eradicate or to enhance, and by what means the properties of the new generation may depend upon the choice of parents. But above all, racial considerations will operate indirectly in the same direction, so that love will be less and less likely to arise under conditions unfavourable to the race. Man is not inwardly a logical creature: _les entrailles ne raisonnent pas, elles ne sont pas faites pour ça_ (George Sand). But by degrees our nature becomes unconsciously transformed through reciprocal influences: the body together with the soul, the soul together with the body; the desires through the thoughts, the thoughts through the desires. It is true that love’s selection will always remain a mystery—from this among many other causes, equally or more important. But the individual and universal qualities which in the main act as an attraction will gradually be more clearly perceived, more sought after by both sexes, and will have more weight in determining their choice.