just as potent in the mighty brain of Sir Isaac Newton or of Louis
Agassiz. Man idealizes the affair of friendship. He forgets whether he
really wants it or not, and then persistently inquires for it. It is not
in the library of possibilities. He therefore goes off angry and
disappointed. Could he get a glimpse at it, I am afraid he would walk
away satisfied with something more nearly en rapport with his nature and
his habits. Let us view this golden word friendship as man idealizes it:
Being a changeable thing, he views friendship (of which he knows
nothing), entirely by comparison with something of which in its turn he
knows but little. This something is always a mother's love for her son,
notorious as the strongest affection shown by our species. He therefore
doubles up this marvelous fact of a mother's love, and creates in his
imagination a reciprocatory agency co-respondent to this mother's love.
Now, with this magnificent product of invention, he goes forth into the
world, seeking for some man upon whom he may bestow a mother's love (of
which the "bestower" is entirely incapable), and who will, in payment,
respond with a mother's love (of which that man would, of course, be
also incapable). In the jargon of electricity a positive and a negative
are absolutely necessary to electric energy.