One of the first distinctions of language and
of mythology was that of gender; and at a later period the ancient
physicist, anticipating modern science, saw, or thought that he saw, a sex
in plants; there were elective affinities among the elements, marriages of
earth and heaven. (Aesch. Frag. Dan.) Love became a mythic personage whom
philosophy, borrowing from poetry, converted into an efficient cause of
creation. The traces of the existence of love, as of number and figure,
were everywhere discerned; and in the Pythagorean list of opposites male
and female were ranged side by side with odd and even, finite and infinite.
But Plato seems also to be aware that there is a mystery of love in man as
well as in nature, extending beyond the mere immediate relation of the
sexes. He is conscious that the highest and noblest things in the world
are not easily severed from the sensual desires, or may even be regarded as
a spiritualized form of them. We may observe that Socrates himself is not
represented as originally unimpassioned, but as one who has overcome his
passions; the secret of his power over others partly lies in his passionate
but self-controlled nature.
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