3. We are therefore forced to acknowledge that Love is a hypostasis
and is "being," which no doubt is inferior to the Being from which it
(emanates, that is, from celestial Venus, or the celestial Soul), but
which, nevertheless, still possesses "being." In fact, that celestial
Soul is a being born of the activity which is superior to her (the
primary Being), a living Being, emanating from the primary Being, and
attached to the contemplation thereof. In it she discovers the first
object of her contemplation, she fixes her glance on it, as her good;
and finds in this view a source of joy. The seen object attracts her
attention so that, by the joy she feels, by the ardent attention
characterizing her contemplation of its object, she herself begets
something worthy of her and of the spectacle she enjoys. Thus is
Love born from the attention with which the soul applies herself to
the contemplation of its object, and from the very emanation of this
object; and so Love is an eye full of the object it contemplates, a
vision united to the image which it forms. Thus Love (Eros) seems to
owe its name to its deriving its existence from vision.[127] Even when
considered as passion does Love owe its name to the same fact, for
Love-that-is-a-being is anterior to Love-that-is-not-a-being. However
much we may explain passion as love, it is, nevertheless, ever the love
of some object, and is not love in an absolute sense.