(This agrees with Freud's conception
of the neurotic subject.)
It is obvious that the three stages of love are merely the expression of
a period in one definite direction. The emotions of antiquity were
entirely earthly, obvious and impersonal; the Middle Ages, on the other
hand, attached value only to the world beyond the grave and matters
pertaining to the soul. The beauty of spring was to them but a reflexion
of another beauty.
"How glorious is life below!
What greater glories may the heavens hold!"
sings Brother John characteristically. But our period is conscious of
the need of realising all our desires, and attaining to the highest
possible spiritual perfection in this earthly life, and this not by
destroying the transcendent ideals, but by stripping them of their
metaphysical character, and bringing them to bear on this life, so that
it may become a higher and holier one. The will of our intellectual
heroes is not the rejection of the doctrine of the survival of the soul,
but the comprehension of past transcendental values, so that they may
become a safe guide to us in this earthly life; a more perfect blending
of realism and idealism; the glorification of life under the aspect of
eternity.
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