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Wells, H. G. (Herbert George), 1866-1946

"First and Last Things"

The great synthesis may become incarnate in
personal love, and personal love lead us directly to universal service.
I write "may" and temper that sentence to the quality of a possibility
alone. This is only true for those who believe, for those who have
faith, whose lives have been unified, who have found Salvation. For
those whose lives are chaotic, personal loves must also be chaotic; this
or that passion, malice, a jesting humour, some physical lust, gratified
vanity, egotistical pride, will rule and limit the relationship and
colour its ultimate futility. But the Believer uses personal love and
sustains himself by personal love. It is his provender, the meat and
drink of his campaign.

4.2. THE NATURE OF LOVE.
It is well perhaps to look a little into the factors that make up Love.
Love does not seem to me to be a simple elemental thing. It is, as I
have already said, one of the vicious tendencies of the human mind to
think that whatever can be given a simple name can be abstracted as a
single something in a state of quintessential purity. I have pointed out
that this is not true of Harmony or Beauty, and that these are synthetic
things.


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