The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-12-21
ONLY THE GERMAN|C
RACES KNOW HOW TO
LOVE SAYS DR.. LUCKA
Book on "The Three Stages
of ErOtics" Makes a Com
motion in European
Literary Circles

Vienna, December 2O.-(SpeciaL) Lit
erary Austria and Germany have been
set talking by a book on "rhe Three
Stages of Erotics," the work of the Vien-
nese poet-phlosopher, Dr. Emil Lucka
1t is the first attempt ever made to pre-
sent a historical and philosophical ac-
count of the development of the passion
of love in all times; and the best critics
declare that DR.. Lucka has SUCCEEDED
His book is pronounced to be the most
! searching and at the same time most
poetical work on the subject. Like all
remarkable books it has aroused contro-
| versy, for some Latin and Slav thinkers
resent bitterly DR. Lnckas conclusion
that only the Germania race, including
the British and North American peoples
| is capable of the highest love.
DR.. Lueka is only SO; but he has to
| his credit some notable achievements in
| poetry, philosophy, and fiction. He Is
born Viennese and has lived constantly
| In Vienna. He began his literary career
| In 1908 with a volume of verse entitled
"Sternennchte," which was pronounced
by the poet, Hugo Won Hoffmansthal, to
be the most promising thing in modern
South German literature. Among half a
dozen later works are the much-read
Isolde Weisshand," death and Life"
and THE Phantasy; a Philosophical En-
quiry" Two years ago DR.. Lucka lee
tured on erotics in Austriantowns; and
from the nucleus Of his lectures sprang
the present book, which has sold i'll
large numbers.
Luckas main thesis is that genuine
love, the synthesis of the sensual and the
IDEAL is something entirely modern He
shows that love among barbarous races
and among the civilized races of anti
quity, was always purely a matter of
the Senses in ancient Greece that which
is now called "platonic love" did not ex-
ist, not even as an ideal. for platonic
love was not love of woman at ALL but
merely love of an ideal. The develop
ment stage which followed this sensual
love did not produce love in the modern
sense. 1t produced an entirely idealzng
love. 1t came in with the Troubadours
The idealizing love of the Troubadours
failed because it did not aim at union
with the beloved it became purely meta
physical, and threatened at one time to
efloresce into impersonal Modenna -wor-
ship. This idealizing love was prominent
in the age of Dante and of the Renais-
sance. 1T existed side by side with the
merely sensuous love of an earlier aEe
but the two never blended The Trouba-
dour worshipped the mistress whose
charms he sang, and revered her too
much to think of union, but at the same
other women. The two loves were kept
apart. The blending of the two, of the
physical and metaphysical, in individual
lovers was not accomplished until the
eighteenth century. And it is not every
where accomplished yet. Only certain
of the most developed races have at
tanned 1t, and outside the Germanic races
1t is practically unknown.
All this argument relates to men. Lucka
makes the remarkable declaration that in
women love has undergone no such de-
velopment. Women missed the develop
ment because they did net need 1t, From
the beginning of time the love of woman
realized the perfect synthesis of the ply
sical and metaphysical, the sensuous and
the ideal, which man has attained only
after thousands of years of striving. But
in all races and at all times woman has
loved In the perfect way In loving
woman has had nothing to learn, and
nothing to forget.