Dialogue on Divine and Human Love

Fifthly, because of constant companionship, which makes not only animals of the same species friends, but even those of different species and of a hostile nature; as one sees a dog with a lion, and a lamb with a wolf, become friends through companionship. Italian: "società." In this context, it refers to the act of living together or habitual association rather than a formal society.

SO. I have understood the causes of love among animals; tell me now those of the love among humans.

PH. The causes of reciprocal love among humans are these same five as for animals, but the use of reason makes them more intense or more moderate, directly or indirectly, according to the diversity of human ends.

SO. Explain these differences to me in each of these five causes.

PH. The first—stemming from desire and the pleasure found in procreation Italian: "generatione," referring to the act of conceiving and producing offspring.—is in humans a cause of more intense, firm, and exclusive love than in animals, and it is usually more concealed by reason.

SO. Explain these differences more particularly.

PH. It is more intense in humans because they love women with greater vehemence and seek them with greater solicitude—so much so that for them they neglect eating and sleeping and set aside all rest. And it is firmer in them because the love between man and woman is preserved longer, so that neither satiety, nor absence, nor any obstacle can dissolve it. It is more exclusive Italian: "propio." Philone is arguing that human pair-bonding is more specific and legally/socially defined than animal mating. because every man has more of a proprietary claim to a specific woman than the male animal has to the female; for although some form of appropriation is found in some animals, in humans it is more perfect and definite. Furthermore, such love is more concealed in humans than in animals because reason usually restrains its excess and judges it base when it is not regulated by it; and because of the force that this carnal appetite has in humans, and because of its disobedience to reason, humans cover the organs of generation The reproductive organs. as things shameful and rebellious against moderate decency.

SOPHIA. Tell me the difference between humans and animals regarding the second cause of love, namely generative succession.

PHILONE. Through generative succession, animals reciprocally love their children with fathers and mothers only, and especially those mothers who are usually their nurturers, or like the father who feeds them, and not otherwise. But humans love fathers and mothers together, and also brothers and other relatives through their proximity in birth. It is indeed true that sometimes human greed and other excesses cause love to be lost not