Dante, in a word, hyper-idealised his passion. He became quite deaf to the fundamental tone of Love, and heard only its overtones. And herein lies his inferiority to Shakspere. It is in the works of Shakspere that the various motives and emotions which constitute Love—sensuous, æsthetic, intellectual—are for the first time mingled in proper proportions. Shakspere’s Love is Modern Love, full-fledged, and therefore calls for no separate analysis. It is a primitive passion, purified and refined by intellectual, moral, and æsthetic culture. And though by no means universal, or even common, at the present day, it is yet of frequent occurrence, and will become more and more prevalent as time rolls on. To facilitate its progress by pointing out its characteristics, its evolution, and the measures that must be taken to foster it, is one of the principal objects of this monograph. MODERN LOVE A BIOLOGIC TEST Writers on evolution have a very simple and convenient way of verifying their inferences, by applying the rule—which seems to hold true universally—that the different stages through which an individual passes in his development—physical and mental—correspond to the periods of development through which the whole race has passed. This principle, applied to our present problem, fits exactly, and proves that the account given in the preceding pages of the development of Love is correct. Historically we have seen that of all affections Maternal Love is the earliest and (until after Romantic Love appears) the strongest. Then paternal, filial, and fraternal love are gradually developed, followed by friendship (Greek), and finally by Love proper. Just so with the individual. The baby’s first love is for its mother, whose tender expression and beaming eyes throw the first reflected smile on its face, and touch the first cord of sympathetic attachment. Then the father comes in for his share of attention, followed by sisters and brothers. At school begins the era of friendship, representing “classical” love, and often as ardent and Love-like as among the ancient Greeks. Finally Romantic Love appears on the scene, eclipsing every other emotion. And, like historic Love, it generally passes through a blind, silly, chivalric stage, known as “calf-love,” which at last is succeeded by real, intense romantic passion, that leads to monogamous marriage, the central pillar of modern civilisation.