humanity
itself, resting on the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.
It is but natural that this love should vary in degrees. Attractions
are proportional to proximity. Family is nearer than country; we
prefer our own nation to the rest of the race.

Each individual has, also, his own special attractions and repulsions.
There is love at first sight and friendship at first sight. We feel
some persons pleasant to us; to be near them is a delight. Generally
such feelings are mutual--like flows to like, or as often, perhaps,
differences fit into each other. We seek sympathy with our own tastes
and habits, or we find in others what we lack. Thus the weak rest upon
the strong, the timid are fond of the courageous, the reckless seek
guidance of the prudent, and so on. The sentiment of

LOVE FOR THE OPPOSITE SEX

--tender, romantic, passionate--begins very early in life. Fathers and
daughters, mothers and sons, have a special fondness for each other,
as, also, have brothers and sisters; but the boy soon comes to admire
someone, generally older than himself, who is not a relation. Very
little girls find a hero in some friend of an elder brother.

FONDNESS FOR COUSINS

generally comes more from opportunity than natural attraction, though
a cousin may have very little appearance of family relation. The law
appears to be that free choice seeks the diverse and distant. A
stranger has always a better chance with the young ladies of any
district than the young men with whom they have always been
acquainted. Savages seek their wives out of their own tribe.

It is my belief that naturally (I mean in a state of pure and
unperverted nature, but developed cultivated, and refined by
education) every man loves womanhood itself, and all women so far as
they approximate to his ideal; and that in the same way every woman
loves manhood, and is attracted and charmed by all its gentle, noble,
and heroic manifestations. By such a man, every woman he meets is
reverenced as a mother, sister, daughter, or, it may be, cherished in
a more tender relation, which should be at first, and may always
remain, free from any sensual desire. Such love may have many objects,
each attracting the kind and degree of affection which it is able to
inspire. Such love of men for women, and women for men, may be free
and will be free just in the degree in which it is freed from the
bondage of sensual pa