arden god.
The spell of the idea is what

"Turns ruin into laughter and death into dreaming."

Such love destroys the baser passion of sense, or transfigures it so
that we know it no longer. The idea-driven is callous to the
blandishments of beauty, for his is a love stronger than the love to
woman. The vestal, the virgin, the eunuch for the kingdom of heaven's
sake are the exemplars of the love to God.

What common trait so marks these warring products of mind, that we call
them by one name? In what is all love the same? The question is
pertinent, for the love of woman, the love of neighbor, the love of
country, the love of God, have made the positive side of most religions,
the burden of their teachings. The priests of Cotytto and Venus, Astarte
and Melitta, spoke but a more sensuous version of the sermon of the aged
apostle to the Ephesians,--shortest and best of all sermons--"Little
children, love one another."[59-1]

The earliest and most constant sign of reason is "working for a remote
object."[59-2] Nearly everything we do is as a step to something beyond.
Forethought, conscious provision, is the measure of intelligence. But
there must be something which is the object, the aim, the end-in-view of
rational action, which is sought for itself alone, not as instrumental
to something else. Such an object, when recognized, inspires the
sentiment of love. It springs from the satisfaction of reason.

This conclusion as to the nature of love has long been recognized by
thinkers. Richard Baxter defined it as "the volition of the end," "the
motion of the soul that tendeth to the end," and more minutely, "the
will's volition of good apprehended by the understanding."[60-1] In
similar language Bishop Butler explains it as "the resting in an object
as an end."[60-2] Perhaps I can better these explanations by the phrase,
_Love is the mental impression of rational action whose end is in
itself_.

Now this satisfaction is found only in one class of efforts, namely,
those whose result is continuity, persistence, in fine, _preservation_.
This may be toward the individual, self-love, whose object is the
continuance of personal existence; toward the other sex, where the
hidden aim is the perpetuation of the race; toward one's fellows, where
the giving of pleasure and the prevention of pain mean the maintenance
of life; toward one's country, as patriotism; and finally toward the
eternally true, which as alone the absolutely p