It is probably on account of this complex nature that for any big and permanent relationship of this kind there has to be a rather slow and gradual culmination. All the various elements have to be hunted up and brought into line. Like all great ideas love has its two sides—its instantaneous inner side, and its complex outer side of innumerable detail. In _consciousness_ it tends to appear in a flash—simple, unique, and unchangeable; but in _experience_ it has to be worked out with much labor. _All the elements have to come into operation_, and to contribute their respective quota to the total result. If we remember what happens when the spermatozoon and the ovum coalesce (see ch. ii. p. 19)—the extraordinary changes and disturbances which are induced in the chromatin elements of both nuclei, the fusion of the nuclei, and the ultimate ranging of the chromosomes in a line (for the formation of the new being) in such a way that every element is represented and contributes its share to the process—we cannot but be struck by the strange similarity to our own inner experience: how love searches the heart, drags every element of the inner nature forward from its lurking-place, gives it definition and shape, and somehow insists on it being represented, and, so to speak, toeing the line. We shall return to this point later. Here I only wish to insist on the complexity of the process, in order to show that for any big relationship plenty of time has to be allowed. Whichever side of the nature—mental, emotional, physical, and so forth—may have happened to take the lead, it must not and cannot monopolize the affair. It must drag the other sides in and give them their place. And this means time, and temporary bewilderment and confusion. It is curious how ‘falling in love’ has this very effect—how it paralyzes for a time—inhibiting the mental part and even the physical; how the smart talker becomes a dumb ass, and the man about town a modest fool, and the person who always does the right thing seems compelled to do everything wrong—as if a confusion were being created in the mind, analogous to that which we have observed in the cells. When we add to these considerations the extraordinary differences between persons, and between the proportions in which the elements of their characters are mixed, it is obvious how extremely complex the conditions of any one decent love-relation must be, and what tact and patience in the handling it may require.