Francesco Cataneo insisted strongly on this invaluable distinction. Analysing man, he found in him a mind, the source of true spiritual love, and a sort of intermediate force hard to define, a “soul or life” whence sensual or, if the term be preferred, profane love has its being. Cataneo moreover dealt hardly with profane love, representing it as bare-footed to indicate its foolishness, lean for lack of nourishment, and winged, for it is evanescent, dependent on physical beauty, on “worthless dross”; and it was because the world knew no other love that the preaching of a Reformation became necessary. As to women, Cataneo never ceased to consider them as stones of stumbling; inheriting all the old prejudices of the schoolmen, he saw in women nothing but imperfect men created for the sole end of perpetuating the race, and man ever seemed to him the perfect type. But with what warmth, with what passion Bembo, the Roman prelate and future cardinal, expounds the modern principles before the charming coterie of Urbino, and, flinging away the swaddling bands of early days, confesses himself frankly a feminist![147] “The terrestrial beauty that excites love,” he says, “is an inflowing (_influsso_) of divine beauty irradiating all creation. It rests like a beam of light on regular, graceful and harmonious features; it beautifies this countenance, shining in it, attracting all eyes to it, and through them penetrating, stirring, delighting the soul and bringing desire to birth therein. Love is thus really born of a ray of divine beauty, caught through the medium of a woman’s face. Unhappily the senses interpose: a man sees in the body itself the source of beauty and longs to enjoy it. How deceived he is! It is not beauty that is thus enjoyed; an appetite is appeased, and soon comes satiety, weariness and often aversion. These deceptions and regrets abundantly prove what an error has been made, for a man must needs have found joy and restfulness if he had sought the true end, whereas on the contrary love gives rise to a thousand ills—griefs and torments, vexation and sullen fits, despondency, catastrophes even; the heart never attains the limit of its desires, or perhaps the man is so sunk in sensual love, declines so far towards the level of the beasts, as to become incapable of comprehending the supreme radiance. All these experiences are dearly purchased. Knowledge how to love comes only in ripe manhood: only the old indeed really have it, and their skill lies in eluding the impulse of the senses, in fleeing from all that is vulgar. If he can do no otherwise, a man must set his face steadfastly towards love divine, taking reason for his guide.”