If it were not for personal attractions, particularly the attractions of one man and one woman, the latent parts of both men and women would remain forever undeveloped and their strong points would continue to grow stronger.  In time (supposing the race did not die out), there would be two classes of people utterly different and at variance with each other—­two opposites with no understanding or sympathy for each other.

Attraction brings together opposites; the strong, steady man falls in love with a frivolous butterfly; a handsome woman attracts a homely man and vice versa; a strong, capable woman marries a sickly, incompetent man—­and supports him; a sentimental woman is attracted to a matter-of-fact man who develops her common sense by pruning her sentimentalities; an artistic temperament is drawn to a phlegmatic; a sanguine to a bilious; a mental to a vital; an active man marries a lazy wife, or vice versa; a bright man marries a stupid girl; and so on and on.

Man and wife are a rounded whole in which the man manifests what is latent in the woman, and the woman supplies that which in the man is as yet undeveloped.  Just as Eve coaxes, or scolds, Adam into habits of neatness; as Adam coaxes, scolds or drives Eve into having his meals on time, thus developing her self-command and promptness; so they act and re-act upon each other to develop a thousand latencies of which they, and the onlookers, are more or less unconscious.

The foolish Adams and Eves fret and strain against these processes of development, and bewail their “mistake” in marrying; not seeing that the association is really benefiting both.  The wise Adams and Eves reduce the friction by kindness, by co-operation with each other; Adam tries to please Eve, Eve tries to please Adam, and both are kind about it, wherefore in due time their appreciation for each other grows, and mayhap their love grows with it.  If love wanes instead of growing at least they are friends, and can part as friends if they so desire.

Someone has well said that without a model husband there can be no model wife.  I believe it.  As long as man and woman are held together by love, attraction, or “conditions” (in its last analysis it is all the Law of Attraction, or God) they are literally one, no matter how hard they kick against the oneness; and neither man nor woman can alone be a model, any more than one side of a peach can be entirely ripe and sweet and the other side entirely hard and green.

So when I speak to Eve about tact and kindness I speak to the Eve in Adam as well as in Eve herself.

And what I say of the attractions of man and wife applies equally well to other family relationships, to friendships, to acquaintanceships and even to our relationship to the people we pass on the street or the heathen we never saw.  Every person who touches us even in the slightest degree, is drawn by the law of attraction because we need him to bring out some latency in ourselves, and because HE needs us to help develop some latency in him.  IT IS OUR OWN HIGHEST DESIRES (the god in us) WHICH CONSTITUTE THE ATTRACTION.