One must not forget either that certain fetishes are superficial and likely to disappear early in life. Blondes may turn into brunettes; sveltness may yield to invading obesity, altho this last change is to be blamed more on the individual's stupidity than upon his glandular condition; a white skin may become yellow, etc.
Preference should, therefore, be given, when in doubt, to more durable fetishes, stature, strength, general appearance, attitude, which are less likely to change with the years.
Matrimonial Engineers. Here is a new field for educators; there may grow from this very new knowledge a new profession, that of the matrimonial engineer, who will diagnose the chances of happiness two human beings may have, if they decide to associate their destinies.
Much has to be studied and experimented upon before any one can consider himself qualified to pass final judgments upon the decisions to which love leads couples.
"However" as Berman writes, "the fact remains that, though we are only upon the first rungs of the ladder, we are on the ladder. We possess a new way of looking upon humanity, a fresh transforming light upon these strange phenomena, ourselves. Of the ugly achievements of that dreadful century, the nineteenth, the most illuminating was the discovery of itself as the ape-parvenu. Yes, we are all animals now, it said to itself, and set its teeth in the cut-throat game of survival. But there was no understanding in that evil motto of a disillusioned heart. The ape-parvenu, desperately lonely and secretive, has still to understand itself....
"Personality embraces much more than merely the psychic attributes. It is not the least important of the lessons of endocrine analysis that here is no soul, and no body either. Rather a soul-body or body-soul, or the patterns of the living flame. The closer tracking of the internal secretions leads us into the secrets of the living flame, why it lives and how it lives, the strange diversities of its coloring and music and the odd variations in its energy, vitality and longevity. Why it flickers, why it flares and glares, spurts, flutters, burns hard or soft, orange-blue or yellow."
CHAPTER XXV
Love and Mother Love
Is the perfect mother a perfect wife? Is the perfect mother, in every case, the result of mental perfection and ethical superiority? Or is there a hidden strife between love and motherhood? Is mother love always the enchanting image presented to us by poets and intimidated sons? Or is it an alloy of higher qualities, biological necessity and egotistical neurotic cravings?