Page:Marriage Its Origin, Uses, and Duties.pdf/13

 but it is at once a rudiment and a beautiful type of that love; and man never comes into the genuine love of which it is the germ, until he again becomes a little child, and is willing to be instructed in the wisdom that is from above by his Father who is in heaven. But when, from the love of growing wise, man has acquired wisdom, and loves that wisdom in himself, he forms to himself another love, which, to distinguish it from the first, we call the LOVE OF WISDOM. But as this is the love which a man has for his own wisdom, it is the pride of intelligence, or self conceit. If this love were to remain with the male human being it would destroy him, by re-acting against the former, and turning his wisdom into folly. It was, therefore, provided from creation that this latter love should be taken out of the man and implanted in the woman, for the purpose of effecting spiritual marriage, by which man is restored to a state of integrity. The love which man has for his own wisdom is the rib, the intellectual proprium or self-hood, which is taken out of the man and made into a woman, by which she becomes bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh. By this beautiful act of creative wisdom, that which would have become in man the narrowest and most debasing self-love, has been transformed into an object of the most disinterested and ennobling affection. At the same time it is provided that the wisdom of the man shall still be loved, and he still loved for his wisdom; not by himself, but by another dearer to him than