This does not mean that lovers in the moments of rapture divide their consciousness between the present and the future, between their own bliss and the possible child. The life of the soul does not work so awkwardly as this. But the conscious conditions of the soul are determined by emotions—reduced for the moment to unconsciousness; and motives, which are forgotten in the hour of fulfilment, have not therefore been less decisive. The athlete in the moment of victory does not remember the training which preceded his race, but it was nevertheless that which decided the fate of that moment. The artist in the hour of creation does not remember the toil of his student years, but that nevertheless determines the perfection of his creation. The will to ennoble the race need not be conscious in a pair of lovers, who in each other forget time and existence, but without the emotions, which, consciously or unconsciously, have been influenced by that will, they would not be united in an ecstasy of the soul and the senses. Young men are becoming increasingly conscious that the thought of the child influenced them in their choice of love; women are increasingly aware that never was their longing for a child stronger than in the embrace of the man to whom they have been attracted by a great love. More and more often do mothers search the features and souls of their children for evidence of their love. More and more often does one hear the unmarried woman confess the hungry longing for motherhood, which a few decades ago she concealed as a shame. Every awakened soul perceives that the consciousness of the time comprehends the mission of the race with a new intensity, although centuries must pass before it can be proved what influence love’s free selection has had upon the production of beings above the present standard of humanity. Even from believers in the religion of life warnings are still heard against the love which is a matter of personal choice, which excludes all else, and which dissolves all former ties. Evolutionists thus admit that this emotion certainly produces in the individual the highest possible development of force, the fullest richness of life, and that this indirectly and in many ways is to the good of the whole. But at the same time they assert that love itself often consumes these enhanced powers; that it ought therefore only to occupy a brief period of human life and should not be allowed any decisive importance in shaping the course of life, since this would be to the detriment of the new generation. Their special objection to love is, that just as monastic life and the celibacy of the clergy during the Middle Ages and down to the present day have deprived the race of excellent qualities—since the most gifted often choose the calm of the cloister or the call of the priesthood—so now many of the best men and women are kept from marriage by the dream or by the loss of a great love’s happiness.