FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98  
99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   >>   >|  
is comprised in the following axiom, which is at the same time the principle and the result of the law. LIX. In every case we receive only in proportion to what we give. This last principle is so self-evident that we will not attempt to demonstrate it. We merely add a single observation which appears to us of some importance. The writer who said: "Everything is true, and everything is false," announced a fact which the human intellect, naturally prone to sophism, interprets as it chooses, but it really seems as though human affairs have as many facets as there are minds that contemplate them. This fact may be detailed as follows: There cannot be found, in all creation, a single law which is not counterbalanced by a law exactly contrary to it; life in everything is maintained by the equilibrium of two opposing forces. So in the present subject, as regards love, if you give too much, you will not receive enough. The mother who shows her children her whole tenderness calls forth their ingratitude, and ingratitude is occasioned, perhaps, by the impossibility of reciprocation. The wife who loves more than she is loved must necessarily be the object of tyranny. Durable love is that which always keeps the forces of two human beings in equilibrium. Now this equilibrium may be maintained permanently; the one who loves the more ought to stop at the point of the one who loves the less. And is it not, after all the sweetest sacrifice that a loving heart can make, that love should so accommodate itself as to adjust the inequality? What sentiment of admiration must rise in the soul of a philosopher on discovering that there is, perhaps, but one single principle in the world, as there is but one God; and that our ideas and our affections are subject to the same laws which cause the sun to rise, the flowers to bloom, the universe to teem with life! Perhaps, we ought to seek in the metaphysics of love the reasons for the following proposition, which throws the most vivid light on the question of honeymoons and of Red-moons: THEOREM. Man goes from aversion to love; but if he has begun by loving, and afterwards comes to feel aversion, he never returns to love. In certain human organisms the feelings are dwarfed, as the thought may be in certain sterile imaginations. Thus, just as some minds have the faculty of comprehending the connection
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98  
99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

principle

 

single

 

equilibrium

 

aversion

 

subject

 

ingratitude

 

forces

 

maintained

 

receive

 

loving


discovering
 

philosopher

 

sweetest

 
sacrifice
 
permanently
 
sentiment
 

admiration

 
inequality
 

adjust

 

accommodate


THEOREM

 

returns

 

organisms

 

faculty

 

comprehending

 

connection

 

imaginations

 

feelings

 

dwarfed

 

thought


sterile
 
universe
 
Perhaps
 

flowers

 

affections

 

metaphysics

 

question

 

honeymoons

 
throws
 
reasons

proposition

 

announced

 
intellect
 

Everything

 
importance
 

writer

 
naturally
 

affairs

 

sophism

 
interprets