The most obstinate disbeliever in the doctrine that romantic love,
instead of being one of the earliest products of civilization, is one
of the latest, will have to capitulate if it can be shown that even
the Greeks, the most cultivated and refined nation of antiquity, knew
it only in its sensual and selfish side, which is not true love, but
self-love. In reality I have already shown this to be the case
incidentally in the sections in which I have traced the evolution of
the fourteen ingredients of love. In the present chapter, therefore,
we may confine ourselves chiefly to a consideration of the stories and
poems which have fostered the belief I am combating. But first we must
hear what the champions of the Greeks have to say in their behalf.