Conjugial Love (Rogers) n. 392

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392. (5) This atmosphere affects both evil people and good, and disposes everyone to love, protect and maintain his progeny, in accordance with his particular love. A love of little children or storg- occurs equally in evil people as in good ones, as experience attests; likewise in animals, gentle and savage. Indeed, in evil people, as in savage beasts, it is sometimes stronger and more fervent. The reason is that every love emanating from the Lord and flowing in is turned, in the recipient, to its life's love. For every animate recipient feels no otherwise than that it loves of itself, since it does not perceive the influx; and so long as it also actively loves itself, it makes the love of its young an extension of its self-love, seeing itself as though in them and them in itself, and regarding itself as thus united with them. [2] That, too, is why this love is fiercer in savage beasts, as in lions and lionesses, in bears and she-bears, in leopards and leopardesses, in wolves and she-wolves, and other like animals, than in horses, deer, goats and sheep. The reason is that these savage beasts have a supremacy over the gentle, and so have a dominant love of self, and this love loves itself in its offspring. Consequently, as said, the love flowing in is turned to self. Such an inversion of the love flowing in to self, and the consequent protection and maintenance of their offspring and young by evil parents, is of the Lord's Divine providence; for otherwise, of the human race, only a few would survive, and of the savage beasts, which nevertheless serve a use, not any. It is apparent from this that everyone is disposed to love, protect and maintain his offspring in accordance with his particular love.


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