333. (1) Truly conjugial love is not possible with more than one wife, consequently neither is truly conjugial friendship, trust, potency, and such union of minds that they become one flesh. Truly conjugial love today is so rare that it is generally unknown, as we have indicated several times before. Nevertheless, we have shown in its own chapter,* and here and there after that in succeeding chapters, that there actually is such a love. Besides, who does not know that such a love is possible, a love which so transcends all other loves in excellence and gratification that they are all inconsequential compared to it? Evidences of experience testify that it exceeds love of self, love of the world, even love of life. Are there not and have there not been men who, for the woman they long for and implore to be their bride, throw themselves on their knees, adore her as a goddess, and submit themselves to her wishes as the humblest of servants - evidence that that love exceeds love of self? Are there not and have there not been men who, for the woman they long for and implore to be their bride, count any price as nothing, not even great riches if they have them, and who also spend their fortunes lavishly - evidence that that love exceeds love of the world? Are there not and have there not been men who, for the woman they long for and implore to be their bride, regard their very life as worthless and wish to die if she does not consent to their entreaty - evidence, as also testified to by the many battles of rival suitors even to their death, that that love exceeds love of life? Are there not and have there not been men who, for the woman they long for and implore to be their bride, at her refusal have been driven out of their minds? [2] From this inception of conjugial love with many, who cannot rationally conclude that from its essence that love rules supreme over every other love, and that the person's soul is then in that love, promising itself eternal blessings with the one he longs for and implores? If one searches this way and that, who can see any other cause than that the person has committed his soul and his heart to the one woman? For if a suitor were to be given, while in that state, the alternative of choosing the most estimable, most wealthy and most beautiful woman of all her sex, would he not spurn the option and cling to his choice, his heart belonging to her alone? So much has been said, kind reader, in order that you may acknowledge that there is a conjugial love of such a superior nature, and that it exists when only one of the opposite sex is loved. If the intellect regards correlations in connected series with a cultivated eye, what one cannot deduce from them that if a lover from his soul or from his inmost being steadfastly persists in a love for the same woman, he would attain those eternal blessings which he promised himself before her consent and continues to promise himself upon receiving it? He does attain them, too, if he goes to the Lord and lives from Him a life of true religion, as we have shown previously. Who else enters from above into a person's life, to bestow on him the inner joys of heaven and impart these in turn to all that follows? And this still more when He also imparts at the same time a constant virility? To judge that such a love does not exist, or is not possible, because it is not found in oneself or in this or that individual, does not follow as a valid conclusion. * In "Truly Conjugial Love," nos. 57ff.