“Definite chemical compounds generally differ altogether in physical properties from their components. Thus, with regard to _colour_, yellow sulphur and gray mercury produce red cinnabar; purple iodine and gray potassium yield colourless iodide of potassium.... The _density_ of a compound is very rarely an exact mean between that of its constituents, being generally higher, and in a few cases lower; and the _taste_, _smell_, _refracting power_, _fusibility_, _volatility_, _conducting power for heat and electricity_, and other physical properties, are not for the most part such as would result from mere mixture of their constituents.” Chemical affinities, accordingly, cannot be used as analogies of Love. Not even on account of the violent _individual preference_ shown by two elements for one another, for this apparently _individual_ preference is really only _generic_. A piece of phosphorus will as readily unite with one cubic foot of oxygen as with another; whereas it is the very essence of Love that it demands a union with one particular _individual_, and no other. Equally unsatisfactory are all similar attempts to identify Love with gravitation or other forms of cosmic attraction. Here is what a great expert in Love has to say on this subject: “The attraction of love, I find,” writes Burns, “is in inverse proportion to the attraction of the Newtonian philosophy. In the system of Sir Isaac, the nearer objects are to one another, the stronger is the attractive force. In my system, every milestone that marked my progress from Clarinda awakened a keener pang of attachment to her.” How beautifully, in other respects, does the law of gravitation simulate the methods of Love! Does not the meteor which passionately falls on this planet and digs a deep hole into it, show its love in this manner, even as that affectionate bear who smashed his master’s forehead in order to kill the fly on it? Does not the avalanche which thunders down the mountain-side and buries a whole forest and several villages, afford another touching illustration of the love of attraction, or cosmic Love?—a crushing argument in its favour? Or the frigid glacier, in its slower course, does it not lacerate the sides of the valley, and strew about its precious boulders, merely by way of illustrating the amorous effect of gravitation? And millions of years hence, will not this same law of attraction enable the sun to prove his ecstatic love for our earth by swallowing her up and reducing her to her primitive chaotic state? Imagine a man and a woman whose love consists in this, that they must be kept widely separated by a hostile force to prevent them from dashing together, and reducing each other to atoms and molecules! _That_ is the “love” of the stars and planets.