216 _et seq._).

In considering whether love is or is not a delusion, they answer that it is or is not according as we are, or are not, dominated by selfishness and injustice.

"It was not an essential error which presided over the creation of the _idol_, for the idol is only what in all things the _ideal_ is.

But to realize the ideal in love two persons are needed, and therein is the great difficulty.

We are never justified," they conclude, "in casting contempt on our love, or even on its object, for if it is true that we have not gained possession of the sovereign beauty of the world it is equally true that we have not attained a degree of perfection that would have entitled us justly to claim so great a prize." And perhaps most of us, it may be added, must admit in the end, if we are honest with ourselves, that the prizes of love we have gained in the world, whatever their flaws, are far greater than we deserved.
We may well agree that in a certain sense not love alone but all the passions and desires of men are illusions.