Those biological studies which seek to probe the secrets of nature have also recognized love as the key of life. Scientists have at last perceived, after much research, this most evident fact: that it is love which preserves the animal species, and not the "struggle for existence." In fact, the struggle for existence tends to destroy; and as regards survival, this is not the exclusive privilege of the "fittest," as was at first supposed. But existence is indeed bound up with love. Indeed, the individuals who struggle and conquer are adults; but who is it that protects the new-born creature and infant life in process of formation? If a hard and horny covering is the natural protection of his species, he does not possess it; if it is strength of muscle, he is weak; if it is tusks, he is without them; if it is agility, he cannot yet move; if it is fecundity, he is not yet mature. Therefore, all species should have become extinct, for there is none so strong but that he once was weak; and there is no infancy which is not more feeble than any adult life. It is love which protects all this weakness, and explains "survival." Maternal love, indeed, is studied to-day with the deepest attention by our scientists as a natural phenomenon. If the struggle for existence presented to us a uniform picture of destruction, the phenomena of maternal love are to-day revealed to us in the richest and most fascinating forms, which almost represent the occult and sentimental aspect of the marvelous varieties of forms in nature. It is seen at last to be one of the "fundamental characteristics of the species," which should be recognized by all students.
Even insects, which Fabre has described with such a wealth of detail, small and remote as they are from ourselves, exhibit wonderful phenomena of maternal love. One of the first articles published by a naturalist on these phenomena, La Psychologie d'une Araignée (The Psychology of a Spider) might serve as the motive of a drama. The spider, as is well known, makes a bag of threads, which she generally attaches to the backs of leaves, and in it she deposits and preserves her eggs; she gets into it herself together with the eggs, to protect the treasure of the species. If the bag should be broken at any point, the spider promptly repairs it. By way of experiment, a spider was taken out of the bag, and kept at a distance for twenty days. What is a spider? A few cubic millimetres of a dark, flabby substance without brain or heart, whose life is so short that twenty days constitute a very long interval for it; but this small creature never relaxed her efforts to escape, and her agitation never abated; finally, when she was liberated at the end of the twenty days, she fled to the bag, hid herself in it, and repaired the walls. Where was all this love and memory concentrated? This mother-spider was then removed from the nest, and another spider was introduced, which at once adopted the offspring, acted the mother, defended the nest from attack, and repaired the walls if they were damaged. There must therefore be a maternal instinct in the species, independent of actual maternity. But when the real mother approached the adopted bag, not only did the foster-mother make no attempt to defend it, but she fled and gave up her place. By what phenomenon of telepathy did the visitor concealed in the bag feel the maternal power approaching? The following was the end of the experiment: the little spiders were hatched, and remained in the bag together with their mother; the experimenter tore the bag to see what would happen; the little spiders fled in every direction, but the mother remained crouching on the tattered fragments of the nest, and died, almost violently, killed by the destruction of her offspring. Maternal love, therefore, does not require complicated organs; it needs neither brain, heart, nor senses, and seems almost to exist without matter; it is the force which life assumes to protect and preserve itself, a force which seems to exist before and to accompany creation, like that wisdom of which Solomon speaks: "The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old.... When there were no depths, I was brought forth.... Then I was by him as a master workman, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him.... Whoso findeth me findeth life."
But long before biologists perceived that love is the powerful force which protects the species, and explains its survival, religion had pointed to love as the force which preserves life. In order to live, it is not enough to be created; the creature must also be loved. This is the law of nature. "He who loveth not ... abideth in death." When Moses gave the decalogue which was to guide the Hebrews to salvation, he preceded it by the law: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself." When the Pharisees came to Christ, asking Him to declare the Law, He answered: "Do you not know? Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself"; as if to say: the law is evident and unique, it is the law of life, and for this reason must always have existed, from the very beginning of the world. But to St. Peter, who was to be the head of the new religion, love the transition from the old to the new order was more fully explained: "Love," said Christ, "even as I have loved you," that is to say, not as you are capable of loving, but as I am capable of loving. There is a deep gulf between the manner in which men are able to love themselves and that in which Christ can love men. Men often rush headlong to their own perdition; they are capable of confounding good with evil, life with death, food with poison. Little confidence can therefore be felt in the injunction: "Love thy neighbor as thyself." And it was in truth a new commandment that Jesus gave, when He said: "Love even as I have loved you."
Moses, indeed, had been obliged to supplement the law of love by a decalogue of practical injunctions: "Honor thy father and mother, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet." Christ, on the other hand taught that it will be enough if we do not demand measure for measure in love, and that there will no longer be any need of the support of rules. We must let the measure overflow; and behold! this in itself opens to man the door of salvation. "If ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them. And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same. And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners to receive as much again. But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again, and ye shall be the children of the Highest" (St. Luke vi, 32-35).
Set yourselves free from all bonds and all measurements and lay hold of the one thing needful: to be alive, to feel; this was the revelation made by Christ when, like Moses, He went up into the mountain, but without hiding Himself from the people, calling the crowd indeed to follow Him, and openly expounding all the secrets of truth: Blessed are those who feel, even if they suffer, for to suffer is to feel, to live. Blessed are those who weep, blessed are those who hunger for righteousness, blessed are the persecuted, blessed are those whose hearts are pure and free from darkness. For he who feels shall be satisfied; but he who cannot feel is lost; woe to those who lie down in comfort, woe to those who are full, woe to those who laugh—they have lost their "sensibility." And then all is vanity. What is the use of knowing all the moral laws, and even practising them, if the heart be dead? It is as if we should whiten the tomb of a corpse. The moral, self-satisfied man, without a heart, is a tomb.
The education of the moral sense.—Thus the conception of moral education, like that of intellectual education, must include a basis of feeling, and be built up thereupon, if we are not to lead the child towards illusion, falsity and darkness. The education of the senses, and liberty to raise the intelligence according to its own laws on the one hand; the education of feeling, and spiritual liberty to raise oneself, on the other—these are two analogous conceptions and two parallel roads.
Consider our position in relation to children. We are their "stimuli," by which their feeling, which is developing so delicately, should be exercised.
For the intellect, we have the various objects, colors, forms, etc.; but for the spirit, the objects are ourselves. The pure souls of children must derive nourishment from us; they should fix themselves on us with their hearts, as their attention is fixed upon some favorite stimulus; and by loving us they should exalt themselves in their intimate spiritual creation.