Now this is of course a serious subject, and it ought to be treated
seriously and reverently. But, it seems to me, Sir George Campbell's
conclusion is exactly the opposite one from the conclusion now being
forced upon men of science by a study of the biological and
psychological elements in this very complex problem of heredity. So far
from considering love as a 'foolish idea,' opposed to the best interests
of the race, I believe most competent physiologists and psychologists,
especially those of the modern evolutionary school, would regard it
rather as an essentially beneficent and conservative instinct developed
and maintained in us by natural causes, for the very purpose of insuring
just those precise advantages and improvements which Sir George Campbell
thinks he could himself effect by a conscious and deliberate process of
selection. More than that, I believe, for my own part (and I feel sure
most evolutionists would cordially agree with me), that this beneficent
inherited instinct of Falling in Love effects the object it has in view
far more admirably, subtly, and satisfactorily, on the average of
instances, than any clumsy human selective substitute could possibly
effect it.
In short, my doctrine is simply the old-fashioned and confiding belief
that marriages are made in heaven: with the further corollary that
heaven manages them, one time with another, a great deal better than Sir
George Campbell.
Let us first look how Falling in Love affects the standard of human
efficiency; and then let us consider what would be the probable result
of any definite conscious attempt to substitute for it some more
deliberate external agency.
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