Thought of the normal type is impossible unless the various parts of the brain are perfectly coordinated, just as the slightest accident to a telephone wire may leave a subscriber cut off from the rest of the world, but thoughts, feelings, emotions, cravings, originate elsewhere, in the autonomic nervous system. =Nerve Memory.= In our autonomic nervous system all our life impressions are indelibly recorded, probably thru infinitesimal chemical modifications of the nerves and the resultant tensions. Pleasant nerve impressions (pleasant memories) direct us toward certain objects which are the source of such impressions, unpleasant impressions drive us away from the outside stimuli which once produced them. The former cause our heart to beat slowly, peacefully, powerfully, the latter speed up the cardiac pump so as to send energy as fast as possible wherever it is needed for defence against harm. Pleasure, indifference and pain, built upon billions of nerve memories, make up the woof of our thinking. They ARE our mind, the mind that falls in love or falls out of love. The head supplies the energy and the heart registers the rate at which energy is sent thru the body, but the memories of which our thinking is made are stored up elsewhere. In a scientific study of love, therefore, I shall leave the head and the heart as individual organs out of consideration. CHAPTER II THE CHOICE OF A MATE =Love is a Compulsion.= The most striking characteristic in the love craving, one which differentiates it sharply from other cravings, is the compulsory exclusiveness of its choice. Hunger drives us to seek a large number of substances which, by filling the stomach, relieve what Cannon describes as a gastric itch. The person in love, on the other hand, seeks only one single object at a time, which alone seems capable of vouchsafing the desired gratification. A lovelorn man may be surrounded by many women, all extremely attractive and accessible, and yet pine away for some other woman who perhaps does not compare favorably with those he might conquer. He may, at times, yield to the temporary attraction of a new woman, but in the majority of cases, he will soon return to the woman he actually loves. Not infrequently his environment will wonder at his choice. "What can he see in her?" Physically or intellectually, anyone but himself would see very little to "admire" in her. =What We See in Our Mate.= The many handsome men whom we have met, and who are mated to homely wives, the many wives we have observed, mated to impossible husbands, and whose affection for their unprepossessing life partner is genuine and in no way dictated by sordid considerations, the many triangles we know of, in which a very inferior lover or mistress is preferred to an admittedly superior husband or wife, are evidence of the involuntary, nay compulsory, character of the love choice.