It is taken for granted
that love can only serve the purpose of the species; the fact that this
theory is both metaphysically and scientifically unsound is ignored. For
even leaving the genius of the species out of the question, his
intelligent comprehension of the "composition of the next generation" is
nevertheless devoutly believed in. Even Nietzsche, that
arch-individualist, was completely under the spell of this dogma, as is
proved by many of his utterances, for instance, by the well-known
socialistic definition of marriage as "the will of twain to create that
which is higher than its creators," and also by his theory that man is
not an end in himself but a bridge to something else. Nietzsche's
pronouncement that he has not yet found the woman whom he would like to
be the mother of his children, echoes the philosophy of Schopenhauer,
the superstition of the genius of philoprogenitiveness. The intrinsic
worth of love without any ulterior motive, without a view to pleasure or
to offspring, seems to have been unknown to Nietzsche.
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