111. From the paper which came forth the EIGHTH in order, he read as follows: "We, natives of the same country, in our place of assembly have not discovered the real origin of conjugial love, because it lies deeply concealed in the sacred repositories of the mind. The most consummate vision cannot, by any intellectual effort, reach that love in its origin. We have made many conjectures; but after the vain exertion of subtle inquiry, we have been in doubt whether our conjectures might not be called rather trifling than judicious; therefore whoever is desirous to extract the origin of that love from the sacred repositories of his mind, and to exhibit it clearly before his eyes, let him go to _Delphos_. We have contemplated that love beneath its origin, and have seen that in the mind it is spiritual, and as a fountain from which a sweet stream flows, whence it descends into the breast, where it becomes delightful, and is called bosom love, which in itself is full of friendship and confidence, from a full inclination to reciprocality; and that when it has passed the breast, it becomes genial love. These and similar considerations, which a young man revolves in his mind while he is determining his choice to one of the sex, kindle in his heart the fire of conjugial love; which fire, as it is the primitive of that love is its origin. In respect to the origin of its virtue or potency, we acknowledge no other than that love itself, they being inseparable companions, yet still they are such that sometimes the one precedes and sometimes the other. When the love precedes and the virtue or potency follows it, each is noble because in this case potency is the virtue of conjugial love; but if the potency precedes and the love follows, each is then ignoble; because in this case the love is subordinate to carnal potency; we therefore judge of the quality of each from the order in which the love descends or ascends, and thus proceeds from its origin to its proposed end." To this decision was subscribed the letter D.