In all these cases (and the above are of course only samples out of thousands) we seem to see an effort of the race-life to restore its total quality—to restore it through the operation of love—either by completing and rounding out the life of the individuals concerned, or by uniting some of their characteristics in the progeny. I say ‘seem to see,’ because we cannot well suppose that this gives a _complete_ account of the matter, or that it explains the whole meaning of Love; but it at any rate suggests an important aspect of the question. The full quality of the race-life is always building itself up and restoring itself in this manner. A process of Regeneration is always going on. And this process, as suggested before, is more fundamental even than Generation—or it is a process of which Generation is only one department. Regeneration is the key to the meaning of love—to be in the first place born again _in_ some one else or _through_ some one else; in the second place only, to be born again through a child. As in the Protozoa, so among human beings, generation alone can hardly be looked upon as the primary object of conjugation; for, among the latter, out of myriads of unions vast numbers are as a matter of fact infertile, and a considerable percentage (as indicated above) are quite _necessarily_ infertile, and yet these infertile unions are quite as close, and the love concerned in them quite as intense and penetrating, as in the case of the fertile ones. “If a girl were free to choose according to her inclinations,” says Florence Farr in an eloquent plea for the economic independence of women,[31] “there is practically no doubt that she would choose the right father for her child, however badly she might choose a life-long companion for herself.” In this passage the authoress seems to suggest (perhaps following Schopenhauer) that the generation of a perfect child is the one main even though unconscious purpose of love-union, and that the individual parent-lives may instinctively be sacrificed for this object. And there no doubt is so far truth in this, that the tremendous forces of love often pay little respect to the world conveniences and compatibilities of the lovers themselves, and that often (as indeed also among the Protozoa) the parent’s life is rudely and ruthlessly sacrificed for the birth of the next generation. Still, even so, I think the statement as put here is risky, both as a matter of fact and as a matter of theory. Would it not be more correct or less risky to say: “If a girl were free to choose, she would choose the man who most completely compensated and rounded out her own qualities, physical and mental (and _so_ would be likely to get her a fine babe), even though he might not prove the best of companions?”