PAGE PREFACE 5 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION 9 FIRST STAGE: THE SEXUAL INSTINCT 21 SECOND STAGE: LOVE CHAPTER I. THE BIRTH OF EUROPE 39 II. THE DEIFICATION OF WOMAN (FIRST FORM OF METAPHYSICAL EROTICISM):--(_a_) The Love of the Troubadours; (_b_) The Queen of Heaven; (_c_) Dante and Goethe; (_d_) Michel Angelo 115 III. PERVERSIONS OF METAPHYSICAL EROTICISM:-- (_a_) The Brides of Christ; (_b_) Sexual Mystics 217 THIRD STAGE: THE BLENDING OF SEXUALITY AND LOVE I. THE LONGING FOR THE SYNTHESIS 231 II. THE LOVE-DEATH (SECOND FORM OF METAPHYSICAL EROTICISM) 251 III. THE CONFLICT BETWEEN SEXUALITY AND LOVE.--THE SEEKER OF LOVE AND THE SLAVE OF LOVE 266 IV. THE REVENGE OF SEXUALITY.--THE DEMONIACAL AND THE OBSCENE 275 CONCLUSION: THE PSYCHOGENETIC LAW.--THE INDIVIDUAL AS AN EPITOME OF THE HUMAN RACE 284 TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION Since the triumphant days of the Mechanists some twenty-five years ago, the wedge of Pragmatism--a useful tool to be used and discarded--has been driven between materialism and idealism, and it appears that the whole tendency of philosophy is now in the latter direction. Even in England the influence of Bergson has led modern thought away from the pure materialism of the monists, and it seems probable that Benedetto Croce's _Philosophy of the Spirit_ will carry the movement a step nearer towards the idealistic concept of reality. And among the latest signs of the new tendency must be counted the brilliant work of Emil Lucka, the young Austrian "poet-philosopher," whose conception of the development of love must rank with the most daring speculations in recent psychology.