The affections undergo a purifying process, according as they are elevated, from those of the animals to those of man. The animals have but little of the sentiment of friendship. Love, with its material impulses, is almost all they know. The sentiments of affection possessed by animals, apart from their carnal instincts, reduce themselves to those of maternity, which are strong and sincere, but of short duration. Their young are the objects of attentive care and caresses while their helplessness demands such aid, but as soon as they can live on their own resources they are abandoned by the mothers, who no longer even recognize them. There is no constant, lasting affection in animals, except the sentiment of love, which is caused by their sexual necessities. The sentiments of affection entertained by man are numerous, and frequently noble and pure. We love our mothers and our sons as long as our hearts beat in our breasts. We love our brothers, our sisters, and our relations with a sentiment in which there is nothing carnal, and which is deeply rooted in the soul. If love is often inseparably attached to physical desires, it can, nevertheless, shake itself free from them, and a disinterested friendship frequently survives the extinction of sensual feeling. In this respect we are far superior to the animals. Let us go a step further, even to the supernatural being, the next link in the chain to ourselves, and we shall find the sentiment of affection entirely detached from the consideration of sex. In that sublime and blessed realm which they inhabit, superhuman beings are all of the same organic type. They need not, in order to love one another, to belong to two opposite sexes, or different groups of organization: their tenderness is the result of the serenity of the infinite purity of souls, of the sympathy evoked by common perfections. On the other hand, the ethereal region which awaits us is the scene of the reunion of those who have loved one another in this world. There the father will find the son, and the mother will rejoin the daughter, torn from each by death, there husbands and wives will meet, and the separation of friends come to an end. But, under their new form, in the perfected body wherein their regenerated souls shall dwell, there is no more sex, and love is for all an ideal, noble, and exquisitely pure sentiment.