Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1912-10-01
Eminent Scientist Says Love
at First Sight Usually
Leads to Trouble 4
Especial Gable to tn. Journai.I


ours when, with better knowledge, it is
found that the other instincts are left
untouched and the one satisfied merely
superficial A love is very complex,
fer it is made up of many different
feelings. Herbert Spencer found nine:
l. The physical influence of sex.
2. The feeling for beauty.
3. Affection.
T. Admiration and respect.
5. Love of appreciation
s. Self-esteem.
Z. Proprietary feeling
s. Extension Of the liberty of action
from the absence Of personal barriers.
9. The exaltation of sympathies.
People who talk about the blind and
irresistible force of passion are them
selves blind to every ordinary psyche
logical fact. Passion, when it occurs.
requires in normal persons cumulative
and prolonged forces to impart to it full
momentum. In its early stages it is UNI
der the control of many influences, in
Guiding influences of reason. If il were
not so there could be no sexual selection,
nor any social organization. Roswell
Johnson says truly that while 1t is un-
deniable that love when once established
defies rational consideration, yet we
mus remark that sexual selection pro-
creeds usually through two stages. first
being one of the mere mutual attraction
and interest. 1t is in this stage that
the will and reason are operative. Not
that / would suggest that instinct be
overruled; ii is usually the interference
with instinct which produces bad re-
suits Wealth, position and worldly con-
venience are great barriers TO love. Ger
tain people who ought not to have chill
dren get married because one or the 9TH
er has money. "A girl who is not at
tractive in any other way is chosen for
her wealth or position, 1T is such I'M
ions, and not those inspired by the
wholesome instincts of wholesome WOO
ers which lead If not to the abstract
deterioration of the, race at all events
in numberless cases to the abiding I'M
happiness of persons who choose mate
without realizing how that mate is like
ly to develop. or what sort of children
may probably be expected from the
union It is fact that a large number
of the children of purely love matches
have been distinguished people Among
illegitimate children are Leonardo IA
Vinci, Erasmus, Boccacio, d'Alembert
end Julie de Laspinasse. The reason
think, is that the strong impulses
which lead to the defiance of custom
were passed on and transformed into
intellect
1T Is a common mistake to say that
engenics would destroy love; IT would
instead enlarge the Boundaries Of love.
1t would form a new class among
which people could find their affini-
ties-a. class OF healthy people. which
ought to be large class. There is no
opposition between engenics and love;
i is merely an altering of ideals, the
forming of new channels through which
love may flow. The play Of love,
however free it may appear. is really
limited in number of directions. Peo-
pie do not tend to fall in love with
those who are in racial respects oon-
trast to themselves; they do not tend
to fall in love with foreigners; they do
not tend to be attracted to the ugly, |
the diseased, the deformed; nor do they
fall in love as rule out of their own
class. They might be attracted, but
they would put the matter out Of the
mind at once, knowing that it was i'm
possible. Even love at first sight is
an instinct largely controlled by ideas.
Stendhal, the French writer calls it a
process of capitalization. He gives
the demonstration of putting a stick in
to a solution and watching the grad
ual growth of crystals round it.. Thus
even little defects in a woman's face,
he says, such as a smallpox pitt will
attract the man who loves her and
throw him into a deep reverie when
seen in another woman. 1t is because
he has experienced thousand feelings,
for the most part delicious, in the
presence of that smallpox mark that
they are renewed with incredible VI
vacitv on sight of this sign, even upon
the face of another woman. Stendhal
quotes a case of man who loved a
very thin woman who was marked
with smallpox. She died and some
time later he was thrown into the
company of two women, one very bead
tiful the other marked with smallpox
and almost ugly. He married the sec
ond. If in such case, says Stendhal,
we come to prefer and love ugliness, it
is only because in such case ugliness
has become beauty Love has gradual
ly crystallized the defects as well IS
the qualities.
'"That love is guided by ideas IS
! proved also by the different ideals OF
beauty and love-worthiness which pre-
vail in various countries. Eugenics
will so guide the ideas that new ideals
will be formed which will instinctively
| and unconsciously influence the I'M
pulses of men and women. 1t will DO
! all this the more surely since the eu-
| genie ideal will lead men and women
| to reject as partners only the men ana
women who are naturally unfit-the
diseased. the abnormal, the weaklings--
| and conscience will thus be on the side
of the impulse 1 quite agree with sir
| James Crichton- Browne when he says
| that much more precise information as
! TO the transmission of character is
necessary before we could venture to
| exercise any extensive control over au-
\ man mating. Eugenics takes two
/ forms-positive and negative. The neg
alive would prevent the bad marriage,
and the positive promote the good but
| the first is easier than the second. We
| do not know vet what qualities can be
transmitted nor how they mix! 1t is
best to trast to the people themselves
| and get the new ideals instiled; then
| thav will love in the. right direction