persons.  Further, the allied emotion of self-esteem comes into play.  To have succeeded in gaining such attachment from, and sway over, another, is a proof of power which cannot fail agreeably to excite the amour propre.  Yet again the proprietary feeling has its share in the general activity:  there is the pleasure of possession—­the two belong to each other.  Once more, the relation allows of an extended liberty of action.  Toward other persons a restrained behavior is requisite.  Round each there is a subtle boundary that may not be crossed—­an individuality on which none may trespass.  But in this case the barriers are thrown down; and thus the love of unrestrained activity is gratified.  Finally, there is an exaltation of the sympathies.  Egoistic pleasures of all kinds are doubled by another’s sympathetic participation; and the pleasures of another are added to the egoistic pleasures.  Thus, round the physical feeling forming the nucleus of the whole, are gathered the feelings produced by personal beauty, that constituting simple attachment, those of reverence, of love of approbation, of self-esteem, of property, of love of freedom, of sympathy.  These, all greatly exalted, and severally tending to reflect their excitements on one another, unite to form the mental state we call love.  And as each of them is itself comprehensive of multitudinous states of consciousness, we may say that this passion fuses into one immense aggregate most of the elementary excitations of which we are capable; and that hence results its irresistible power.”

Ribot has copied this analysis of love in his Psychologie des Sentiments (p. 249), with the comment that it is the best known to him (1896) and that he sees nothing to add or to take away from it.  Inasmuch as it forms merely an episodic illustration in course of a general argument, it certainly bears witness to the keenness of Spencer’s intellect.  Yet I cannot agree with Ribot that it is a complete analysis of love.  It aided me in conceiving the plan for my first book, but I soon found that it covered only a small part of the ground.  Of the ingredients as suggested by him I accepted only two—­Sympathy, and the feelings associated with Personal Beauty.  What he called love of approbation, self-esteem, and pleasure of possession I subsummed under the name of Pride of Conquest and Possession.  Further reflection has convinced me that it would have been wiser if, instead of treating Romantic Love as a phase of affection (which, of course, was in itself quite correct), I had followed Spencer’s example and made affection one of the ingredients of the amorous passion.  In the present volume I have made the change and added also Adoration, which includes what Spencer calls “the sentiment of admiration, respect, or reverence,” while calling attention to the superlative phase of these sentiments which is so characteristic of the lover, who does not say, “I respect you,” but “I adore you.”  I may therefore credit Spencer with having suggested three or four only of the fourteen essential ingredients which I find in love.