DESCRIPTION OF LOVE IN GENERAL TERMS
The will has so great an attraction to goodness that as soon as it becomes aware of good, it turns in that direction to delight in it as its very pleasing object. It is very closely related to it, so much so that we cannot know the nature of the will except in relationship with goodness. Nor can we express the nature of good except through its relationship with the will. What is it, I ask you, Theotimus, that each one desires except good? And what is the will if not the power that seeks and tends to good or what one thinks to be good? The will perceives and senses the good with the help of the understanding which presents the good to it. It experiences in itself a sudden satisfaction and delight in this encounter. This moves and inclines the will gently yet powerfully to this lovable object, to unite itself with it. To arrive at this union, satisfaction makes the will to seek the most suitable means.
The will has a very intimate relationship with goodness. This relationship causes satisfaction which the will feels and experiences on becoming aware of the good. This satisfaction moves and urges the will to the good. This movement tends to union. Finally, the will, moved and striving for union, searches for all the necessary means to realize it. Of course, to speak in general, love may be compared to a beautiful tree which includes all these [movements of the will] taken together. Its root is the attraction of the will to the good. Its foot is the satisfaction, its trunk the movement of the will to the good. Its branches are the pursuit, the quest and other efforts which the will makes, and the fruit is union and enjoyment. Thus love seems to be made up of five main parts. There are many other smaller elements too, as we shall see in the course of this work.
Let us take as an example the insensitive love between the magnet and the iron. It is a true image of the sensitive and voluntary love we are dealing with. Iron has such an attraction to the magnet that as soon as it feels its power, it turns towards it. Then suddenly it begins to stir and move with small quick movements, showing thereby the satisfaction it experiences. Then it forges ahead and moves towards the magnet, striving by all means to unite itself with it. Are not all the parts of a lively love demonstrated well in these inanimate things?
Finally, Theotimus, love in the proper sense is the satisfaction in and the movement or flow of the will towards the object of love. However, satisfaction is only the beginning of love. The movement or the flow of the heart which follows is true, essential love. Both may be called love, but with different meanings. The dawn of the day may be called day. Similarly this first satisfaction of the heart in the object of love may be called love since it is the first feeling of love. Just as the real day begins only at the end of the dawn and lasts till sunset, so too the true essence of love consists in the movement and outpouring of the heart which immediately follows satisfaction and ends in union.
Satisfaction, in short, is the first stirring or the first emotion which goodness causes in the will. This emotion is followed by the movement and flowing out by which the will goes forward and approaches the object of love. It is genuine and proper love. Let us put it like this: Goodness seizes, takes control of and binds the heart by satisfaction. But by love it draws the heart, leads and brings it to itself. By satisfaction goodness makes the heart come out of itself. But by love it causes the heart to take the road and make the journey. Satisfaction is the awakening of the heart, but love is its action. Satisfaction makes it get up, but love makes it walk. The heart extends its wings through satisfaction but love is its flight. Love, then, to express it very clearly and exactly is nothing else than the movement, out-flowing and progress of the heart towards good.
Many great persons have thought that love is simply satisfaction itself. In this, they were apparently quite right. All the same, the movement of love begins from the satisfaction which the heart feels at its first encounter with goodness. It finds fulfillment in a second delight which arises in the heart from union with the object of love. Apart from it, the preservation of love depends on satisfaction and love can live only by it, which is its mother and nurse. Both are so related that as soon as satisfaction ceases to exist, love also ceases. Bees are born in honey, they feed on honey and do not fly except for honey. Similarly love is born from satisfaction and preserves itself through satisfaction and seeks satisfaction. The weight of things stirs them, moves them and brings them to a stop. It is the weight of a stone which gives it movement and stirs it on to its descent, as soon as obstacles are removed. It is the same weight that makes it continue to roll down. Finally, it is still the same weight that makes it stop and be still when it reaches its place. Thus it is satisfaction that stirs the will. It moves it and it makes the will rest on its object of love when it is united with it. This movement of love, since it depends on satisfaction in its birth, preservation and perfection finds itself inseparably united with it. Hence it is not surprising that these great minds thought that love and satisfaction were the same thing. In fact, love is truly a passion of the soul. It cannot be a simple satisfaction but should be the movement which proceeds from it.
This movement caused by satisfaction lasts till union or enjoyment. Therefore when this movement seeks a good that is present, it does nothing else but press the heart towards the good, holds it tight, joins to it and applies it to the object of love [good]. In this way it [heart] enjoys it. We call it gratifying love because as soon as it is born at the first satisfaction, it terminates in a second one [delight] which it receives from union with the object present. The good towards which the heart is turned, is seeking and is touched may be away, absent or attainable only in future. It may not be possible to achieve this union as perfectly as one wishes. Then the movement of love by which the heart seeks, moves towards and longs for this object that is absent is properly called desire. In fact desire is nothing else than the appetite, lust or greed for things which we do not have but wish to have.
Moreover, there are some movements of love by which we desire things which we do not expect nor even intend to get. Such are when we say: If I were in paradise now! I would like to be king; would to God, I were younger; had I never sinned at my will, and similar things. These are desires but imperfect desires. It seems to me that properly speaking these are wishes. In fact, these emotions are not expressed as desires. When we express our genuine desires, we say: I desire. When we express our imperfect desires we say, I would wish or I would like. We may say rightly: I would like to be young. But we will not say: I desire to be young, because it is impossible. This movement is called wishfulness or, as the scholastic philosophers call it, vel- leity. It is only the beginning of an act of willing which is not followed up. Seeing that it is impossible or very difficult to reach the object, the will stops its movement. It ends in a simple emotion of wishfulness. It is as if the will is saying: This good that I see I cannot get, though it is very pleasing to me. Though I cannot desire or hope for it, yet if I could will or desire it, I would willingly will or desire it. In short, these velleities or wishfulness are only a small love. It may be termed love of simple approval because, though unreachable, the soul is pleased with the good it knows. In fact, since it cannot desire it, it protests that it would desire it willingly and it is really desirable.
This is not all, Theotimus. There are more imperfect desires and wishes than those which we have just mentioned. The movements of such desires are not stopped because they are impossible or very difficult to attain, but due to their incompatibility with other desires and wishes which are stronger. Take for example a patient who desires to eat pumpkins or melons. Though he can order them, nevertheless he does not want to eat them, because he is afraid that his illness will become worse. Who does not see two desires in this man? one is to eat the pumpkin and the other to be healed. Since the desire to be healed is stronger, he chokes and suppresses the other, preventing it from producing any effect. Jephte wanted to save the life of his daughter (Judg 11:30-40). But it was incompatible with his desire to fulfill his vow. He willed what he did not wish, namely, to sacrifice his daughter. Thus he desired what he did not want, which was to save his daughter.
Pilate (Jn 19:12) wished to set our Saviour free and Herod (Mk 6:20,26) wished to set the Precursor free. But these desires were incompatible, one with the desire of pleasing the Jews and Caesar, and the other that of pleasing Herodias and her daughter. These were fruitless and useless desires. Now, in so far as things are incompatible with those things that are desired, they are less lovable. The wishes are weaker, as they are stopped and as it were suffocated by weak contrary ones. Thus Herod’s desire not to kill John was weaker than that of Pilate to set our Lord free. Pilate feared the calumny and anger of the people and of Caesar, Herod that of disappointing a single woman. These desires are blocked, not at all due to impossibility but because of the incompatibility they have with the more powerful desires. Such wishes are truly called wishes and desires but wishes that are vain, suppressed and useless. We say about the desires of what is impossible: I wish but I cannot. Of what is possible we say: I wish but I do not want it.[1]
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[1] St Francis de Sales makes a distinction: desire is used for what is really attainable and is stronger. Wish or wishfulness for what is very difficult to obtain and is weaker.