The Evolution of Love

Name: The Evolution of Love
Author: Emil Lucka

by Emil Lucka

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Language: en1,423 downloads on Project Gutenberg

Subjects

Love Sex

In: Love·Psychiatry/Psychology·Philosophy & Ethics

Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #17699.

About this book

The work is a scholarly treatise that sets out to trace love’s “primitive manifestations” and to argue for a stage‑by‑stage evolution of the emotion, distinct from mere sexual instinct. Lucka opens by declaring his aim to combine historical facts with psychological insight, warning that neither historian nor psychologist will be satisfied. He sketches three phases, first the raw sexual impulse of early societies, then a “metaphysical eroticism” that emerges with the deification of woman in medieval Europe, and finally a synthesis of sexuality and love. The preface and extensive contents list reveal a systematic approach, drawing on Plato, troubadour poetry, and religious mysticism, while the translator’s introduction situates Lucka’s speculative ambition within early‑20th‑century philosophical currents.

Written in a dense, academic prose that reflects the turn‑of‑the‑century German intellectual climate, the book blends historical narrative with philosophical argument. Readers who enjoy rigorous cultural history, the philosophy of emotions, or the intellectual backdrop of early psycho‑historical thought will find it rewarding, whereas those seeking a light narrative or a purely romantic account may be put off by its exhaustive analysis and occasional polemics.

The opening · free to read

The object of this book, which is addressed to all cultured men and women, is to set forth the primitive manifestations of love and to throw light on those strange emotional climaxes which I have called "Metaphysical Eroticism." I have taken no account of historical detail, except where it served the purpose of proving, explaining and illustrating my subject. Nor have I hesitated to intermingle psychological motives and motives arising from the growth and spread of civilisation. The inevitable result of a one-sided glimpse at historical facts would have been a history of love, an undertaking for which I lack both ability and inclination. On the other hand, had I written a merely psychological treatise, disregarding the succession of periods, I should have laid myself open to the just reproach of giving rein to my imagination instead of dealing with reality.

I have availed myself of historical facts to demonstrate that what psychology has shown to be the necessary phases of the evolution of love, have actually existed in historical time and characterised a whole period of civilisation. The history of civilisation is an end in itself only in the chapter entitled "The Birth of Europe."

My work is intended to be first and foremost a monograph on the emotional life of the human race. I am prepared to meet rather with rejection than with approval. Neither the historian nor the psychologist will be pleased. Moreover, I am well aware that my standpoint is hopelessly "old-fashioned." To-day nearly all the world is content to look upon the sexual impulse as the source of all erotic emotion and to regard love as nothing more nor less than its most exquisite radiation.

My book, on the contrary, endeavours to establish its complete independence of sexuality.

My contention that so powerful an emotion as love should have come into existence in historical, not very remote times, will seem very strange; for, all outward profession of faith in evolution notwithstanding, men are still inclined to take the unchangeableness of human nature for granted.

The facts on which I have based my arguments are well known, but my deductions are new; it is not for me to decide whether they are right or wrong. In the first (introductory) part I have made use of works already in existence, in addition to Plato and the poets, but the second and third parts are founded almost entirely on original research.

E.L.

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