Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/221

Rh same?" To love those who love us is natural love; and can any words quash and confound the claim of such love to rank as a moral excellence or as a moral development more effectually than these?

"But," continues the same Divine Teacher, "I say unto you, Love your enemies;" obviously meaning, that in this kind of love, as contradistinguished from the other, a new and higher element is to be found, the element of morality, and that this kind of love is a state worthy of approbation and reward, which the other is not. Here, then, we find a discrimination laid down between two kinds of love—love of friends and love of enemies; and the hinge upon which this discrimination turns is, that the character of morality is denied to the former of these, while it is acceded to the latter. But now comes the question, Why is the one of these kinds of love said to be a moral state or act, and why is the other not admitted to be so? To answer this question we must look into the respective characters and ingredients of these two kinds of love.

Natural love, that is, our love of our friends, is a mere affair of temperament, and in entertaining it, we are just as passive as our bodies are when exposed to the warmth of a cheerful fire. It lies completely under the causal law; and precisely as any other natural effect is produced by its cause, it is generated and entailed upon us by the love which our friends bear towards us. It comes upon us unsought. It costs us nothing. No thanks to us for