members of their flocks, and their love would be that love and that life which would be possible on that stage of consciousness which they occupy.

But men are rational beings and cannot help seeing that other beings have the same love for their own, and that, therefore, these sentiments of love must come into conflict and cause something which is not good and the very opposite to the concept of love.

But if men use their reason for the purpose of justifying and strengthening that animal, unpropitious sentiment, which they call love, by ascribing monstrous proportions to this feeling, it not only fails to be good, but also makes of man this is an old truth a very evil and terrible animal. What takes place is like what is said in the Gospel: "If the light which be in thee is darkness, how great is the darkness?" If there were nothing in man but love for himself and for his children, there would not be even one hundredth part of that evil which now exists among men. Ninety-nine hundredths of the evil among men is due to that false feeling which they, extolling it, call love, and which resembles love as much as the life of an animal resembles that of a man.

What people, who do not know life, call love, is only certain preferences of one set of conditions of the good of personality over another. When a man, who does not understand life, says that he loves his wife, or babe, or friend, he merely says that the presence of his wife, his child, his friend, in his life increases the good of his personal life.

These preferences have the same relation to love that existence has to life. And as people who do not understand life call existence life, so these people mean by love the preference of certain conditions of their personal existence over others.

These sentiments, the preferences for certain beings, for example, for one's children or even for certain occupations,

for example, for science, or art, we call love; but such sentiments of preference, infinitely diversified, form the whole complexity of the visible and palpable animal life of men and cannot be called love, because they lack the chief sign of love, an activity which has the good both for its aim and consequence.

The passionateness of the manifestation of these preferences only shows the energy of the animal personality. The passionateness of the preference of one set of men to others, which is incorrectly called love, is only a wild tree on which true love may be grafted and may bring forth its fruits. But as the wild tree is not an apple-tree and brings forth no fruit, or only bitter fruit instead of sweet, so bias is not love and does no good to men, or produces a still greater evil. Consequently the greatest evil is caused the world by the much lauded love of woman, of children, of friends, not to speak of the love of science, of art, of country, which is nothing but a temporary preference of certain conditions of animal life over others.

XXIV.

TRUE LOVE IS THE CONSEQUENCE OF THE RENUNCIATION OF THE GOOD OF PERSONALITY

TRUE love becomes possible only with the renunciation of the good of the animal personality.

The possibility of true love begins only when man has come to understand that there does not exist for him the good of his animal personality. Only then all the sap of his life passes into the one ennobled graft of true love, which is growing with the full vigour of the wild trunk of the animal personality. Christ's teaching is a grafting of this love, as he himself said. He said that he, his love, is the one vine which can bear fruit, and that every branch which does not bear fruit will be cut off.

Only he who has not merely understood, but comprehends with his whole life that "he that loveth his life shall lose it, and he that loseth his life for my sake shall save it," only he who has come to understand that he who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will save it for the eternal life, only he will know true love.

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. If you love those who love you, it is not love; love your enemies, love those who hate you."

Not in consequence of their love of father, son, wife, friends, good and dear people, as is generally believed, do people renounce their personality, but only in consequence

of the consciousness of the vanity of the existence of personality, of the consciousness of the impossibility of its good, and so man, in consequence of the renunciation of the life of personality, learns to know true love, and can truly love his father, son, wife, children, and friends.

Love is the preference of other beings over oneself, over one's animal personality.

The oblivion of the nearest interests of personality for the purpose of attaining the more distant aims of the same personality, as happens in the case of so-called love, which has not grown out of self-renunciation, is only the preference of some beings over others for the purpose of one's personal good. True love, before becoming an active feeling, must be a certain condition. The beginning of love, its root, is not an outburst of feeling which dims reason, as it is generally imagined to be, but a very rational, bright, and so calm and joyful state, which is peculiar to children and rational people.

This state is one of good-will toward all men, which is inherent in children, but which in adults comes only with renunciation and is strengthened proportionately with the renunciation of the good of personality. How often we may hear the words, "It is all the same to me, I need nothing," and with these words to see a loveless relation to men! But let any man even once, in a moment of illwill toward men, say sincerely, from his soul, "It is all the same to me, I need nothing," and really not wish anything, even though for a short time, and he will find out through this simple internal experience how, in proportion with the sincerity of his renunciation, all ill-will disappears at once, and how good-will toward all men, which heretofore was locked up in his heart, will burst forth in a torrent.

Indeed love is a preference of other beings over oneself, this is the way we all understand love, and cannot understand otherwise. The magnitude of love is the

magnitude of a fraction, the numerator of which, my bias, my sympathy for others is not in my power; but the denominator, my love of myself, may be indefinitely increased or diminished by me, in accordance with the meaning which I shall ascribe to my animal personality; but the reflections of our world on love and its degrees are reflections on the magnitude of fractions judged by their numerators alone, without any reference to their denominators.

True love has always for its basis the renunciation of the good of personality and the consequent good-will toward all men. Only on this universal good-will can true love for certain persons grow, the love for friends

and for strangers, and only such love gives the true good of life and solves the seeming contradiction between the animal and the rational consciousness.

Love which has not for its basis the renunciation of personality and the consequent good-will toward all men, is only an animal life and is subject to the same and even greater calamities and even greater misunderstanding than the life without this apparent love. The sentiment of bias, called love, not only fails to remove the struggle of existence, to free the personality from the chase after enjoyments, and to save from death, but also obscures life, embitters the struggle, intensifies the eagerness for enjoyments for oneself and for others, and increases the terror of death for oneself and for others.

A man who assumes all his life to lie in the existence of the animal personality cannot love, because love must present itself to him as an activity which is directly opposed to his life. The life of such a man lies only in the good of the animal existence, whereas love first of all demands a sacrifice of this good. Even if a man who does not understand life wanted sincerely to abandon himself to the activity of love, he would not be able to do so until he understood life and changed all his relation