This follows as coming from the same source as previously mentioned [223]; the sphere of conjugial love is received by women, and transferred by them into men, because women are destined by birth to be loves of men's intellects, and the intellect is a receiver. It is much the same with the love of children, because it is in origin from conjugial love. It is well known that mothers have the tenderest love for children, fathers not so tender a love. It is clear that the love of children is imprinted on conjugial love, to which women are destined by birth, from the fact that girls show a kindly and sociable affection for small children, and for dolls which they carry around, clothe, kiss and hug to their bosoms. Boys do not show this affection.

[2] It might seem as if mothers get their love of children from nurturing them with their blood in the womb, so that they make their mother's life their own and are sympathetically united. But in fact this is not the source of that love, since if without the mother's knowledge another baby were, after it is born, to be substituted for her real child, it would be just as tenderly loved as if it were her own. Moreover, children are sometimes loved more by their nurses than by their mothers. It follows from these observations that this love can come from no other source than the conjugial love implanted in every woman; and the love of conceiving is associated with it, its pleasure preparing a wife to receive it. This is the first stage of this love, and after childbirth it is fully transferred with its pleasure to the child.