[CHAPTER XII]
SENSUAL LOVE
Permanent mating is altruistic in character, but the altruism extends only to the future generation. Even the fastidiousness found in permanent mating is in the interest of the unborn. The mates are only tools in the hands of the commanding Spirit, whose all-governing principle has only one thought, only one prosaic aim, the propagation of the human species. The attachment between both mates cannot, therefore, be properly called love. For in love the mate is of primary importance. But the permanent-mating impulse is the stepping-stone to love which is first found in the human race. In human love a distinction must be made, according to Finck, between two different kinds; love as an instinct, or sensual love[AD] and love as a sentiment, or sentimental love.
Sensual love is the only kind of love the greater part of humanity knows.[AE] This love has no depth or duration, and when satisfied, cares no longer for the object for which it temporarily hungered. For when sense forms the chief part of the compound feeling, love will not long survive possession. There may be a strong individual preference in sensual love. The charm exuding from the personality of one individual may possess a kind of personal magnetism for another of the opposite sex. The luscious intoxicating essences, exhaling from one person, may have a particular idiosyncratical attraction for the other. Hence sensual love may be as fastidious as pure love. It may temporarily focus its interest on one person only. Yet in sensual love the intense desire for exclusive possession, the jealousy toward rivals, the coy-resistance, and the moods of doubt and hope are only emanations of selfish lust, of eagerness to gratify an appetite with a particular victim for whom the lover has no adoration or self-sacrificing devotion. Such a lover loves only himself; his one object is to please his own beloved “I,” without any regards for the feelings of his mate. The latter figures only as a means to the end, that end being his own gratification. To such a lover, “I love you” means “I long for you, covet you, and am eager to enjoy you.” All indulgences and favors shown to the mate are only meant as means to gain a certain end, and when this cannot be attained, sensual love will change into the contrary passion of hatred. In sentimental love such a thing as hatred is impossible. For to understand a thing thoroughly, forever puts that thing beyond the pale of hatred; to love a thing merely is to subject oneself to the possibility of hating that thing.
Sensual love, says Duboc, starts as an ideal notion and fancy from the sensual enjoyment which the sexual feeling promises. Whoever promises to satisfy to perfection appears as an ideal, by being the representative of this enjoyment; he becomes the object of the highest wish and desire. But as soon as he loses this significance, this symbol of sexual union, he immediately is deprived of his ideal character. By no means can, therefore, sensual love renounce, because with the resignation and renunciation the deposition of the ideal immediately begins, while true love can only prove its genuineness by the very renunciation.
Sensual love is thus characterized by the egoism that lies at its foundation. Joy and sorrow, hope and fear, which may be found in sensual love, are only the selfish aspects of passion. The moods of hope and despair may disquiet or delight also those who love only as a carnal appetite. A desire which is the most violent and the most engrossing of all passions, a craving which next to hunger and thirst is the most powerful and imperious of all appetites may cause all kinds of selfish pleasures and selfish pains. Even attachment and fondness are no proof of the existence of pure love. The manifestations of attachment may spring from selfish interest, they may be the rewards for favors to come. Fondness, displaying a silly extravagance or unseemly demonstrativeness, does not prove true love; it may be only a foolish, doting indulgence. The old maid is also fond of her dog and the little girl of her doll. Some men love their wives as children love dolls, and, as a natural result, treat them just as dolls are treated. They dress them in all the finery they are able to procure, pet and exhibit them until they become old, and then they turn aside for their neighbors’ dolls. Even the doll’s admired beauty is valued not for the pure artistic delight of loveliness, but as an incentive to the chase. This is not true love. The person is here only valued as an object without which the beloved “ego” could not have its selfish indulgence. Even adoration is no proof of true love. Husbands are often adored for their coldness, hardness, arrogance and contemptuousness, and beaten wives do often most warmly adore. Yet such husbands are certainly not truly loved.
Fondness, liking and attachment even to the degree of committing suicide upon the loss of the person coveted, may not be true love withal. Suicide is no test of true love. Many a man commits suicide after losing his wealth, yet money is not loved for its own sake, but for the power it possesses of procuring the means for enjoyment. A person may take his own life because it feels lonely after the failure to secure the desired union. An individual may risk life and comfort to obtain possession of a coveted body for its own enjoyment. Such actions are no indication of genuine love and, generally, they prove just the contrary, just as the unrestrained, unlimited desire which ignores all considerations of honor, prosperity and peace, does not prove true love but, on the contrary, the urgings of the primal instinct. Neither should the sacred term “true love” be applied to the feeling that animates selfish and impulsive idiots to assassinate cowardly an unresponding mate. Such designs just prove the selfish lust. The gross, sensual infatuation which leads a man to shoot a woman who rejects him, or which leads a woman to throw acid in the face of the beloved man, is absolutely antithetic to refined, ardent, sentimental love, which impels the lover to sacrifice his own life and comfort rather than let any harm come to the one beloved.
This true love is only possible among the refined and cultured. Hence the greater part of humanity has never known the emotions of sentimental love. The only love it knows is sensual love.[AF] Men and women with blunt intellects also have blunt feelings and are incapable of experiencing true love. They can only be inspired by the love of the body. This love, to be sure, is not necessarily coarse or obscene, yet it is a stranger to true sentimental love.
[CHAPTER XIII]
SENTIMENTAL LOVE
Sentimental, or true love, is a conscious altruism and is the antithesis of the egotistic sensual love. Before applying the term true love to the relation of both mates, the test of disinterested affection, as found in the instinctive parental love, must be applied. The distinction between sensual and sentimental love is the selfish desire of libido in the former and the self-sacrificing ardor of altruistic affection in the latter.