the
eternal idea of the body.

Both "the sons of the universe," therefore, and all other living
souls are compelled, in so far as they give themselves up to the
creative energy, to direct their will towards the eternalization of
this idea. But is there not an inevitable frustration and negation of
this desire and this will?

Are not both the "companions of men" and men themselves denied
by the very nature of things the realization of this idea? Is not the
love of man for "the sons of the universe" frustrated in its desire in
so far as "the sons of the universe" cannot be embodied in flesh
and blood? And is not the love of "the sons of the universe" for
man frustrated in its desire in so far as the physical form of each
individual soul is destroyed by death?

It seems to me that this dilemma cannot be avoided. Love insists
on the eternity of the idea of the body. Therefore every soul who
loves "the sons of the universe" desires their incarnation. But if
"the sons of the universe" could appear in flesh and blood for the
satisfaction of any one of their lovers, all other souls in the wide
world would lose them as their invisible companions. But although
this dilemma cannot in its literal outlines be avoided, it seems that
the same inherent nature of love which leads to this dilemma leads
also to the vanishing point or gap or lacuna in thought where the
solution, although never actually realized, may conceivably exist.

What love desires is the eternalizing of the idea of flesh and blood.
It desires this because the idea of flesh and blood is a necessary
aspect of the fulness and completeness of personality. But though
the idea of flesh and blood is a necessary aspect of personality,
every actual incarnation of personality leaves us aware that the
particular soul we love has something more of beauty and nobility
than is expressed.

This "something more" is not a mere hypothetical quality but is an
actual and real quality which we must assume to exist in the very
stuff and texture of the soul. It exists, therefore, in that
"vanishing-point of sensation," as I called it, which we have to think
of, although we cannot define it, as constituting the soul's essential
self. Those pre-existed ideas which find their synthesis in the
emotion of love are undoubtedly part of the unfathomable
universe. But they are this only because they are interwoven
with the unfathomable soul which exists in each of us. The
"something," ther