Experimental investigation of the spirit manifestations, [electronic ...

MARRIAGE ON EARTH AND IN HEAVEN. 205ari^rc from our munJaac habits. It would seem a.s if it wore a benevolentindcnHiification for celibacy, or for the miseries so often resulting from theconnubial state in this world, consequent, like the sufferings of child-bearing,to the perpetuation of mankind.1070. It seems to me an error to suppose that the terrestrial man'iagecan be a secondary object with God, when the important part which itperforms is taken into view.lOSO. Incapacity to maintain a family often renders it impossible forthose who would marry to come together, and worldly motives induce marriages,even when disgust or indifference may exist on the part of one,if not on that of both the parties.1081. It seems, moreover, even where marriage actually results fromthe passion of love, that it is more or less the consequence of a speciesof hallucination, through which lovers deck an object with all that theywould wish to exist in the way of merit, and feel toward them an affectionproportionate to their own capacity to love, rather than of the degree ofpower in the object, reasonably to excite such intense partiality. It isthus that the love of the mother to the child she believes to be her own,"svill be powerful in proportion to her own capacity for maternal love,rather than of the child to excite love ; since though it be a monster, andnot rcaUy her oioii child, but fraudulently suhstituted therefor, it willcause no diminution of her maternal devotion.1082. It is the impression on the mind that determines the object towhich the passion is directed ', thecharacter of the being actuated by thepassion, which determines its strength.1083. But where to all those qualifications which would create friendshipbetween persons of the same sex, the peculiar emotions which takeplace between those of different sexes are superadded, those who cometogether in this world under the hymeneal tie, may find itsomething morethan a mere civil contract, and not terminated by death. Moreover, independentlyof the original passion, there arises an affection which isjustly distinguished as conjugal, and which differs from the other in thishighly important particular, that it is founded on a thorough reciprocalknowledge, instead of that ignorance which too often accompanies attachmentsproduced by the arrows of the blind god, as Cupid is sometimesdesignated with figui-ative consistency.1084. Having always supposed that independently of the emotionspeculiar to the sexes, there could only be friendship between a man andwoman like that whiich would exist between a brother and sister, I am ata loss to understand what it can be which, in the spiritual state of existence,can induce indissoluble marriage.1085. On submitting the suggestions comprised in the preceding statementto the spirit to whom I owe much information, herein quoted, and