Love universally taken, is defined to be a desire, as a word of more ample signification:  and though Leon Hebreus, the most copious writer of this subject, in his third dialogue make no difference, yet in his first he distinguisheth them again, and defines love by desire. [4463]"Love is a voluntary affection, and desire to enjoy that which is good. [4464]Desire wisheth, love enjoys; the end of the one is the beginning of the other; that which we love is present; that which we desire is absent.” [4465]"It is worth the labour,” saith Plotinus, “to consider well of love, whether it be a god or a devil, or passion of the mind, or partly god, partly devil, partly passion.”  He concludes love to participate of all three, to arise from desire of that which is beautiful and fair, and defines it to be “an action of the mind desiring that which is good.” [4466]Plato calls it the great devil, for its vehemency, and sovereignty over all other passions, and defines it an appetite, [4467]"by which we desire some good to be present.”  Ficinus in his comment adds the word fair to this definition.  Love is a desire of enjoying that which is good and fair.  Austin dilates this common definition, and will have love to be a delectation of the heart, [4468]"for something which we seek to win, or joy to have, coveting by desire, resting in joy.” [4469]Scaliger exerc. 301. taxeth these former definitions, and will not have love to be defined by desire or appetite; “for when we enjoy the things we desire, there remains no more appetite:”  as he defines it, “Love is an affection by which we are either united to the thing we love, or perpetuate our union;” which agrees in part with Leon Hebreus.

Now this love varies as its object varies, which is always good, amiable, fair, gracious, and pleasant. [4470]"All things desire that which is good,” as we are taught in the Ethics, or at least that which to them seems to be good; quid enim vis mali (as Austin well infers) dic mihi? puto nihil in omnibus actionibus; thou wilt wish no harm, I suppose, no ill in all thine actions, thoughts or desires, nihil mali vis; [4471]thou wilt not have bad corn, bad soil, a naughty tree, but all good; a good servant, a good horse, a good son, a good friend, a good neighbour, a good wife.  From this goodness comes beauty; from beauty, grace, and comeliness, which result as so many rays from their good parts, make us to love, and so to covet it:  for were it not pleasing and gracious in our eyes, we should not seek. [4472]"No man loves” (saith Aristotle 9. mor. cap. 5.) “but he that was first delighted with comeliness and beauty.”  As this fair object varies, so doth our love; for as Proclus holds, Omne pulchrum amabile, every fair thing is amiable, and what we love is fair and gracious in our eyes, or at least we do so apprehend and still esteem of it. [4473] “Amiableness is the object of love, the scope and end is to obtain it, for whose