d into the body; for the mind, by derivation from the head, is in the
body, while it feels and acts, especially when it is delighted from this
love: hence we judge of the degrees of its potency and the regularity of
its alterations. Moreover we also deduce the virtue of potency from the
stock whence a man is descended: if this be noble on the father's side,
it becomes also by transmission noble with his offspring. That such
nobility is generated, inherited and descends by transmission, is
agreeable to the dictates of reason supported by experience." To this
decision was subscribed the letter F.

111. From the paper which came forth the EIGHTH in order, he read as
follows: "We, natives of the same country, in our place of assembly have
not discovered the real origin of conjugial love, because it lies deeply
concealed in the sacred repositories of the mind. The most consummate
vision cannot, by any intellectual effort, reach that love in its
origin. We have made many conjectures; but after the vain exertion of
subtle inquiry, we have been in doubt whether our conjectures might not
be called rather trifling than judicious; therefore whoever is desirous
to extract the origin of that love from the sacred repositories of his
mind, and to exhibit it clearly before his eyes, let him go to
_Delphos_. We have contemplated that love beneath its origin, and have
seen that in the mind it is spiritual, and as a fountain from which a
sweet stream flows, whence it descends into the breast, where it becomes
delightful, and is called bosom love, which in itself is full of
friendship and confidence, from a full inclination to reciprocality; and
that when it has passed the breast, it becomes genial love. These and
similar considerations, which a young man revolves in his mind while he
is determining his choice to one of the sex, kindle in his heart the
fire of conjugial love; which fire, as it is the primitive of that love
is its origin. In respect to the origin of its virtue or potency, we
acknowledge no other than that love itself, they being inseparable
companions, yet still they are such that sometimes the one precedes and
sometimes the other. When the love precedes and the virtue or potency
follows it, each is noble because in this case potency is the virtue of
conjugial love; but if the potency precedes and the love follows, each
is then ignoble; because in this case the love is subordinate to carnal
potency; we therefore judge of the