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IV.
OF LOVE AND THE AFFECTIONS.
LOVE IS OF GOD.—1 John iv. 7.
Conscience deals with universal principles of morals. It has for its object justice, the divine law of the world, to be made ideal in the consciousness of mankind, and then actual in the facts of our condition and history. The affections deal with persons; with nothing but persons, for animate, and even inanimate, things get invested with a certain imaginary personality as soon as they become objects of affection. Ideas are the persons of the intellect, and persons the ideas of the heart. Persons are the central point of the affectional world. The love of persons is the function of the affections, as it is that of the mind and conscience to discover and accept truth and right.
This love is a simple fact of consciousness; a simple feeling, not capable of analysis, not easily described, yet not likely to be confounded with any other fact of consciousness, or simple feeling. It is not directly dependent on the will, so is free from all immediate arbitrariness and caprice of volition. It is spontaneous, instinctive, disinterested, not seeking the delight of the loving subject, but of the object loved. So it is not a desire of enjoying, but of delighting. As we love truth for itself, justice for its own sake, so we love persons not for their use, but for themselves; we love them independently of their convenience to us. Love is its own satisfaction; it is the love of loving, not merely of enjoying, another.
Such is love itself, described by its central character; but it appears in many forms, and is specifically modified by the character and condition of the person loved, the object of affection; by the person who loves, the loving subject; and by the various passions and emotions mingling therewith. So it appears as fraternal, filial, connubial,
