Man’s proper study is that of his relation to his environment.  So long as he only knows that environment through his physical nature, he should study himself in relation to things; this is the business of his childhood; when he begins to be aware of his moral nature, he should study himself in relation to his fellow-men; this is the business of his whole life, and we have now reached the time when that study should be begun.

As soon as a man needs a companion he is no longer an isolated creature, his heart is no longer alone.  All his relations with his species, all the affections of his heart, come into being along with this.  His first passion soon arouses the rest.

The direction of the instinct is uncertain.  One sex is attracted by the other; that is the impulse of nature.  Choice, preferences, individual likings, are the work of reason, prejudice, and habit; time and knowledge are required to make us capable of love; we do not love without reasoning or prefer without comparison.  These judgments are none the less real, although they are formed unconsciously.  True love, whatever you may say, will always be held in honour by mankind; for although its impulses lead us astray, although it does not bar the door of the heart to certain detestable qualities, although it even gives rise to these, yet it always presupposes certain worthy characteristics, without which we should be incapable of love.  This choice, which is supposed to be contrary to reason, really springs from reason.  We say Love is blind because his eyes are better than ours, and he perceives relations which we cannot discern.  All women would be alike to a man who had no idea of virtue or beauty, and the first comer would always be the most charming.  Love does not spring from nature, far from it; it is the curb and law of her desires; it is love that makes one sex indifferent to the other, the loved one alone excepted.

We wish to inspire the preference we feel; love must be mutual.  To be loved we must be worthy of love; to be preferred we must be more worthy than the rest, at least in the eyes of our beloved.  Hence we begin to look around among our fellows; we begin to compare ourselves with them, there is emulation, rivalry, and jealousy.  A heart full to overflowing loves to make itself known; from the need of a mistress there soon springs the need of a friend He who feels how sweet it is to be loved, desires to be loved by everybody; and there could be no preferences if there were not many that fail to find satisfaction.  With love and friendship there begin dissensions, enmity, and hatred.  I behold deference to other people’s opinions enthroned among all these divers passions, and foolish mortals, enslaved by her power, base their very existence merely on what other people think.

Expand these ideas and you will see where we get that form of selfishness which we call natural selfishness, and how selfishness ceases to be a simple feeling and becomes pride in great minds, vanity in little ones, and in both feeds continually at our neighbour’s cost.  Passions of this kind, not having any germ in the child’s heart, cannot spring up in it of themselves; it is we who sow the seeds, and they never take root unless by our fault.  Not so with the young man; they will find an entrance in spite of us.  It is therefore time to change our methods.