So then, after what has here been called to mind, no one can doubt either the reality or the importance of the matter; and therefore, instead of wondering that a philosophy should also for once make its own this constant theme of all poets, one ought rather to be surprised that a thing which plays throughout so important a part in human life has hitherto practically been disregarded by philosophers altogether, and lies before us as raw material. The one who has most concerned himself with it is Plato, especially in the “Symposium” and the “Phædrus.” Yet what he says on the subject is confined to the sphere of myths, fables, and jokes, and also for the most part concerns only the Greek love of youths. The little that Rousseau says upon our theme in the “_Discours sur l’inégalité_” (p. 96, ed. Bip.) is false and insufficient. Kant’s explanation of the subject in the third part of the essay, “_Ueber das Gefühl des Schönen und Erhabenen_” (p. 435 _seq._ of Rosenkranz’s edition), is very superficial and without practical knowledge, therefore it is also partly incorrect. Lastly, Platner’s treatment of the matter in his “Anthropology” (§ 1347 _seq._) every one will find dull and shallow. On the other hand, Spinoza’s definition, on account of its excessive naïveté, deserves to be quoted for the sake of amusement: “_Amor est titillatio, concomitante idea causæ externæ_” (_Eth._ iv., prop. 44, _dem._) Accordingly I have no predecessors either to make use of or to refute. The subject has pressed itself upon me objectively, and has entered of its own accord into the connection of my consideration of the world. Moreover, least of all can I hope for approbation from those who are themselves under the power of this passion, and who accordingly seek to express the excess of their feelings in the sublimest and most ethereal images. To them my view will appear too physical, too material, however metaphysical and even transcendent it may be at bottom. Meanwhile let them reflect that if the object which to‐day inspires them to write madrigals and sonnets had been born eighteen years earlier it would scarcely have won a glance from them.