THE LADDER OF LOVE

Evening Star, Issue 20137, 30 March 1929, Page 9

THE LADDER OF LOVE

; ■ EVOLUTION OF SEX LIFE'S GREATEST ADVENTURE [By Professor J. AitTiaut/Thomson, in ‘John o’ London's M cekh . J All agree that inuu may find mundane guidance for conduct (1) in the .past 'history of his race, _ (2) in the moral tradition of the society to which ho belongs, and (3) in his inborn sensitiveness to the recorded wisdom of the ages. But it is possible that he may also find in Animate Nature a lamp to his feet and a ligh/to his path. Sonic wise men regard Nature as a book or bihle, rich in suggestions and warnings, and not without inspirations. But in any case it is the system to which w T c are bound, and out ot which wo have emerged ; it is the outcome of a long scries of on hie. con finned for hundreds of millions .of years; and wo have inherited from prehuman organisms certain strong impulses of behaviour, more or loss transmuted no doubt, which we do well to try to understand. How does this apply to lovoi' SJiX AT ITS SIMPLEST.

In its humblest expressions, sex appears very self-centred. There is in many simple .animals an urge to liberate germ ceils, just as tlie .stamens ol a flower liberate pollen grains. Many simple animals burst locally or entirely when they give origin to new Jives. Not a few worms explode fatally in the sea in their reproductive crisis. But oven at this level we may find subtlety, as in the ease of the Palulo worm of Samoa.

In October or November every year, when the moon enters on its third quarter, for half an hour before sunrise, the long Palolo worms back out ol the crevices among the coral reefs,, and jerk off their whole body, except the head end, which keeps its hold in the coral cranny. Then the sea teems with wriggling greenish worms: it is like vermicelli soup for several inches deep. The worm bodies wriggle and burst, libeiatiug millions of egg cells and sperm cells. All the bodies die: but the heads live ou, and grow new' bodies for next year, thus avoiding the nemesis of total death, Subtlety at a low level I Ai STH ETIC A TIT! A CTIO XS. When female salmon make a furrow in the gravelly bed of the stream, and, with flicks of her tail, buries her eggs in it, the male follows and sheds the fertilising milt. There need be no contact, but there must he proximity Again, in a familiar case like the coupling of frogs, in spring, the male embraces the female there is contact, hut no more. This is at the threshold of pairing; it represents an early stage in tiio evolution of sex. when there is nothing but contact. Yet this contact may bo crude and superficial in one animal type and somewhat subtle and intimate in another.

A second step on tlic ladder of love is marked by the addition of [esthetic attractions. Thus there may be incense as in some butterflies; there may be a display of decorative features or impressive agilities, as in many spiders; there may be music, as in birds. In short, the [esthetic appeal is manifold and of many grades. Among birds, as everyone knows, an appeal may bo made to hearing, and there is twittering, cooing, calling, crowing, flapping, with a climax in song. Or there may be an appeal to sight, as in display, strutting, posing, posturing, parading, fluttering, with climax in dance. Or there may he .» subtlety of touch, as when the male pigeon fondles his desired male's neck. Wu are apt to miss the .subtlety of many forms of animal courtship. 'Thus the male stickleback appeals not only by bis very decorative colliding robes, but, by building a nest ol wood, which makes a subtle)- appeal. Then again there are several courtships in which the male offers gifts to his love. rSYCL.HCA.Ii BONDS. The third step in the ladder of love is marked by the forging of psychical bonds which bind the two individuals together more lastingly Ilian physical fondne-s or msthciic attraction can do. 'These intimate bonds ol psychical sympathy are mainly scon, as one would expect, in birds and mammals. They may lie the outcome of prolonged courtship before actual mating, as in the elaborate ceremonial, including exchange of gifts, in the Great Crested Grebe; or they may come as a reward to co-operation in nest building, or in the defence of a chosen territory, or u the enjoyment ol a decorated honeymoon lodge in the bower birds. Cater on they may he riveted by co-operation in feeding, defending, and educating the offspring. TiOKMONKS AND iIAIIiIONV.

No doubt a powerful influence is c\ciTed by t Ik; hormones which sire liberated at scx-imilnrity from the reproductive organs and are carried by 1 lie blood throughout tin; body, like beys opening doors Ihit one must not think of those hormones as operating in a mindless body. .Mow one would resent Ibis insinuation in regard to oneself, and it is tbe- same for Uie nightingale. There is a golden (psychological) as well as a silver (physiological) side to the shield of life. The nightingale's harmony is not altogether hovmoniel The physiologist is right in insisting on the ductless glands and their hormones; the psychologist is right in insisting on the mind and its hopes. ’Tis the merry nightingale That crowds and hurries and precipitates With thick last warble his delicious notes As be were fearful lest an Anri! night Would be too short for him to utter forth. His love chant, and disburden his full soul Of all his music. THE 31011 AT, FOll MAX. Wc speak nob very happily of “ falling in love " ; it would bo better to hope at least of rising. It is the greatest adventure in life for most of ns, and from the Tiible of Nature we may get, if we are humble enough, this garrisoning advice, that successful loving has three chief notes: physical fondness, the indispensable roots; lesthetic attractions, which may bo called the lino foliage of the love plant; and psychical sympathies—intellectual, emotional. and ethical or practical—which are the most beautiful flowers in the world. . A sympathy of two personalities, physically fond of one another, aesthetically pleasing to one another, may bo wrought out by a companionship m endeavour, which may rise from the simple, vet often sublimely solved, bread-and-butter problems of husbandry and housewifely to the immortal enterprises of ilio best forms of chivalry.