Conjugial Love (Acton) n. 96

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96. That conjugial love is proper to man is because man alone can become spiritual; for he can elevate his understanding above his natural loves and from that height can see those loves beneath him and judge of them as to their quality; he can also amend, chasten, and remove them. This, no animal can do, for its loves are wholly united with its connate science, for which reason that science cannot be elevated into intelligence, still less into wisdom. Hence an animal is led by the love implanted in its science, like a blind man led through the streets by a dog. This is the reason why conjugial love is proper to man. It can also be called native and germane to man, because man has within him the faculty of being wise, with which this love makes one.


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