As affirmed already, the principle of love is that also of life, for the two are identical in essence, though the principle assumes many forms in manifestation. All originate from the Great Central Source of Life in the universe. It is to be said further that they differ from moral affinities or intellectual sympathies, but it is in their manifestations and not at their roots. The principle of love is divisible into six forms or modes, of which self-love is the first and lowest. In its natural and normal state this is the soul's especial guardian. Self is the only court of appeal from things without. Jesus tells you to love your neighbour as yourself, making individual conscientiousness the standard of judgment. Self-love is the pivot on which the spiritual mechanism revolves; it is the foundation of the living entity, the source of all known instincts. The desires of self-protection and self- preservation spring from thence, and it fixes in a certain mysterious manner the eternal continuation of the individual. The next ascending form is conjugal love, which elevates the mind above the plane or sphere of self-efforts and endeavours for the happiness of self. In a natural state of development it urges the soul to seek its counterpart or equivalent, prescribing, compelling and sanctifying in refined natures the marriage relation between the sexes. The soul learns thereby that mere self-existence is but half-existence, self-doing but hal£-
doing. The third form is parental love, having its own demands, its own laws, its own methods of fulfilment. The fourth is fraternal love, the soul's desire of fellowship with its kind and the key of universal association. Its magic word is brotherhood, yearning for friendship, demanding social compacts, leaning toward united interests. Filial love is the fifth form, and it elevates the eyes of the soul toward real or imagined superiors. It seeks the just made perfect, angelic intercourse, and aspires toward the Divine Being. It reveres aged persons, and its natural root is in the child's love for its parents. The sixth form is universal love, being the antithesis of the love of self, though not its antagonist in well-balanced minds. Universal love spreads her wings and transports the soul into boundless realms. It bestows the idea of universal sympathies and dependence one upon another. The desire of liberty springs here-from, and so also does the soul's eagerness for perpetual discoveries and endless progression. Though it abides in every human being, there are few as yet who are aware of its sublime emotions.
All these loves, though pure intrinsically, are capable of a dual misdirection, to be characterised as extremism and invertionism. The extreme action of self-love gives rise to isolated excesses, to avarice, extravagant needs and inordinate desire for personal possessions. In its inversion, on the other hand, self-love leads to carelessness, personal neglect, disregard of life and possessions, indolence and all the inharmonies which are due to an absence of healthy self-interest and preservation. The extreme action of conjugal love leads to excessive sensuality, disregard of individual attachment and true marital relations. Its inverted operation is indicated by coldness and even repugnance to the opposite sex, not to speak of scandalous vices. An extreme action of parental love manifests in passionate fondness for children as such, while its inversion is exhibited in dislike to the
young, passing occasionally into various exaggerated grades. Fraternal love in its extremes appears in a variety of aspects, from inordinate love of society, genial company, regardless of quality and shrinking from being ever alone, to the preference of friends above even wife and children. The inverted action may engender hatred or hostility to one's own sex, animosities, feuds, vendettas, and so on without number. The exaggerations of filial love inspire idolatrous sentiments and disproportionate estimations of those who are called great, while its inversion manifests in disrespect for superiors and may lead into scepticism regarding a Supreme Being. In its extremity universal love is hasty, precipitate, impetuous and unable to brook restraint, while its antithesis or inversion begets scorn of the world, cynicism and murderous dislike of humanity. Inverted fraternal love acts only within the narrow limits of acquaintance, but inverted universal love condemns the whole race of man.
These six loves, within their reasonable degrees and under their due directions, are angels of the Kingdom of Heaven within you; in an extreme state they make shipwreck of the soul; inverted they are demons of rancour, pride, hatred, malice and revenge. Regarded at their highest, they are sources and givers of life, spirit, intuition and inspiration.
It remains to be said that love is developed from the blood. This is not its cause or creator, for, on the contrary, it arises out of the ultimate sanguineous essence,1 as the beautiful and graceful Venus is supposed mythologically to have sprung from the foam of the sea. Blood is possessed of life, and life is identical with love. Sex is the fundamental law of existence—that is to say, the
male and female, positive and negative principles. Those who comprehend this law in its fulness hold that key which will unlock all mysteries in the world— including those of science, morals, religion and spirituality. It is the Alpha and Omega of all production and generation. In the Divine Source it is love and wisdom, the ultimates of which, made in their own image and after their likeness, are in the soul of man. Blood-love, remaining within its own measures, is, however, temporary and changeable, as illustrated by the ties of consanguinity, which are always weakened by time. No love is stedfast, save that which has taken up its residence in the cerebral substance, by a progression of blood-love into the love which is spiritual, and is therefore permanent.
That ultimate essence of the blood to which reference has been made is the sacred menstruum of love, the seminal secretion, the seed of life, which flows through the system—alike in woman and man. It is not obtainable from common blood in the circulatory system until this has been vitalised by the operation of spiritual love thereupon. This brightest and holiest of principles in the mental empire acts upon the finest sanguineous atoms in the nervous system and spiritualises them. The ultimate or spermatic essence is thus produced, and can be expended (1) in spiritual activity, yielding fruit in various ideas, or (2) in physical activity, yielding offspring of either sex. Every improper and inordinate expenditure of the love-essence is nothing less than a destruction of so much body and soul.