at
once a diminution in the dynamic polarity between the two parties_.
That is, as its individuality and its mental concept of the mother
develop in the child, there is a corresponding _waning_ of the dynamic
relation between the child and the mother. And this is the natural
progression of all love. As we have said before, the accomplishment of
individuality never finally exhausts the dynamic flow between parents
and child. In the same way, a child can never have a finite conception
of either of its parents. It can have a very much more finite,
finished conception of its aunts or its friends. The portrait of the
parent can never be quite completed in the mind of the son or
daughter. As long as time lasts it must be left unfinished.

Nevertheless, the inevitable photography of time upon the mental plasm
does print at last a very substantial portrait of the parent, a very
well-filled concept in the child mind. And the nearer a conception
comes towards finality, the nearer does the dynamic relation, out of
which this concept has arisen, draw to a close. To know, is to lose.
When I have a finished mental concept of a beloved, or a friend, then
the love and the friendship is dead. It falls to the level of an
acquaintance. As soon as I have a finished mental conception, a full
idea even of myself, then dynamically I am dead. To know is to die.

But knowledge and death are part of our natural development. Only, of
course, most things can never be known by us in full. Which means we
do never absolutely die, even to our parents. So that Jesus' question
to His mother, "Woman, what have I to do with thee!"--while
expressing a major truth, still has an exaggerated sound, which comes
from its denial of the minor truth.

This progression from dynamic relationship towards a finished
individuality and a finished mental concept is carried on from the
four great primary centers through the correspondence medium of all
the senses and sensibilities. First of all, the child knows the mother
only through touch--perfect and immediate contact. And yet, from the
moment of conception, the egg-cell repudiated complete adhesion and
even communication, and asserted its individual integrity. The child
in the womb, perfect a contact though it may have with the mother, is
all the time also dynamically polarized against this contact. From the
first moment, this relation in touch has a dual polarity, and, no
doubt, a dual mode. It is a fourfold inte