Читать книгу Owen's Moral Physiology; or, A Brief and Plain Treatise on the Population Question онлайн

9 страница из 29

To prove that genuine love is nothing but this passion, it is sufficient to refer to the period at which it comes on, and at which it leaves us. We hear not of love in decaying age or in infancy; and the attachments of habit, of kindness, of gratitude, or of human, social, individual, parental, filial, or domestic affection, have no connexion with the passion of love. We talk of a love, of virtue, of friendship, of heroism, of character, of generosity; but this kind of love is a matter wholly distinct from the passion of love between the male and female. All men are apt to feel the tender passion of love for a beautiful woman: all women for a handsome and agreeable man: but this is nothing more than a desire to associate ourselves with the most agreeable objects for sexual commerce. The every day occurrences of mankind explain this matter, and hence the many violences and intrigues connected with the passion of love; hence seductions, adulteries, rapes and intercourses pronounced unlawful in different countries.