CHAPTER V.
LOVE AS A TEST OF GOODNESS.
The positivists represent love as a thing whose value is self-dependent 101 And which gives to life a positive and incalculable worth 103 But this is supposed to be true of one form of love only 104 And the very opposite is supposed to hold good of all other forms 105 The right form depends on the conformity of each of the lovers to a certain inward standard 105 As we can see exemplified in the case of Othello and Desdemona, etc.

107 The kind and not the degree of the love is what gives love its special value 108 And the selection of this kind can be neither made nor justified on positive principles 109 As the following quotations from Theophile Gautier will show us 110 Which are supposed by many to embody the true view of love 110 According to this view, purity is simply a disease both in man and woman, or at any rate no merit 116 If love is to be a moral end, this view must be absolutely condemned 117 But positivism cannot condemn it, or support the opposite view 117 As we shall see by recurring to Professor Huxley's argument 118 Which will show us that all moral language as applied to love is either distinctly religious or else altogether ludicrous 122 For it is clearly only on moral grounds that we can give that blame to vice, which is the measure of the praise we give to virtue 123 The misery of the former depends on religious anticipations 124 And so does also the blessedness of the latter 125 As we can see in numerous literary expressions of it 126 Positivism, by destroying these anticipations, changes the whole character of the love in question 128 And prevents love from supplying us with any moral standard 131 The loss sustained by love will indicate the general loss sustained by life 131.