stance to arrive into
life. But, once the work of nature accomplished, disenchantment ensues.
The illusion that duped him has vanished.

According to Schopenhauer love is, therefore, but the manifestation of an
instinct which, influenced by the spirit of things, irresistibly attracts
two people who, through natural conformity, are better adapted to
conjointly fulfil nature's aims than they would be with other partners.
Schopenhauer added that in such circumstances, when two individuals
complete each other and common and exclusive affection possesses them
both, their affection represents a special mission delegated by the Genius
of the Species, one which consequently assumes a character of high
elevation. In these cases, in addition to physical adaptation there is, he
noted, a mental and temperamental concordance so adjusted that the parties
alone could have achieved nature's aims. In actuating them to that end the
Genius of the Species desired, for reasons which Schopenhauer described as
inaccessible, the materialization of a particular being that could not
otherwise appear. In the series of existing beings that desire had no
other sphere of action than the hearts of the future parents. The latter,
seized by the impulsion, believe that they want for themselves that which
as yet is but purely metaphysical, or, in other words, beyond the circle
of actually existing things. In this manner, from the original source of
whatever is, there then darts a new being's aspiration for life which
aspiration manifests itself in the actuality of things by the love of its
potential parents, who, however, once the object of the Genius of the
Species attained, find, to their entire astonishment, that that love is no
more. But meanwhile, given that love, and the potential parents may become
so obsessed by it that they will disregard anything which, ordinarily,
would interfere.

This disregard, Schopenhauer further explained, is due to the Genius of
the Species to whom the personal interests of the individual, laws,
obstacles, differences of position, social barriers and human conventions
are so many straws. Caring only for the generation to be lightly he
dismisses them. It is his privilege, Schopenhauer declared. Our existence
being rooted in him, he has over us a right anterior and more immediate
than all things else. His interests are supreme.

"That point," Schopenhauer concluded, "antiquity perfectly understood when
it personified th