About three things I was absolutely positive. First, Edward was a vampire. Second, there was a part of him-and I didn’t know how potent that part might be-that thirsted for my blood. And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.
We may give our human loves the unconditional allegiance which we owe only to God. Then they become gods: then they become demons. Then they will destroy us, and also destroy themselves. For natural loves that are allowed to become gods do not remain loves. They are still called so, but can become in fact complicated forms of hatred.
"Oh! thou clear spirit of clear fire, whom on these seas I as Persian once did worship, till in the sacramental act so burned by thee, that to this hour I bear the scar; I now know thee, thou clear spirit, and I now know that thy right worship is defiance. To neither love nor reverence wilt thou be kind; and e'en for hate thou canst but kill; and all are killed. No fearless fool now fronts thee. I own thy speechless, placeless power; but to the last gasp of my earthquake life will dispute its unconditional, unintegral mastery in me. In the midst of the personified impersonal, a personality stands here. Though but a point at best; whencesoe'er I came; wheresoe'er I go; yet while I earthly live, the queenly personality lives in me, and feels her royal rights. But war is pain, and hate is woe. Come in thy lowest form of love, and I will kneel and kiss thee; but at thy highest, come as mere supernal power; and though thou launchest navies of full-freighted worlds, there's that in here that still remains indifferent. Oh, thou clear spirit, of thy fire thou madest me, and like a true child of fire, I breathe it back to thee."
It was the answer which Hobbes (1588-1679) gave to these fundamental questions that supplied the starting-point for independent ethical philosophy in England. The nature of this answer was determined by the psychological views to which Hobbes had been led, possibly to some extent under the influence of Bacon,[26] partly perhaps through association with his younger contemporary Gassendi, who, in two treatises, published between the appearance of Hobbes's _De cive_ (1642) and that of the _Leviathan_ (1651), endeavoured to revive interest in Epicurus. Hobbes's psychology is in the first place materialistic; he holds, that is, that in any of the psycho-physical phenomena of human nature the reality is a material process of which the mental feeling is a mere "appearance." Accordingly he regards pleasure as essentially motion "helping vital action," and pain as motion "hindering" it. There is no logical connexion between this theory and the doctrine that appetite of desire has always pleasure (or the absence of pain) for its object; but a materialist, framing a system of psychology, will naturally direct his attention to the impulses arising out of bodily wants, whose obvious end is the preservation of the agent's organism; and this, together with a philosophic wish to simplify, may lead him to the conclusion that all human impulses are similarly self-regarding. This, at any rate, is Hobbes's cardinal doctrine in moral psychology, that each man's appetites or desires are naturally directed either to the preservation of his life, or to that heightening of it which he feels as pleasure.[27] Hobbes does not distinguish instinctive from deliberate pleasure-seeking; and he confidently resolves the most apparently unselfish emotions into phases of self-regard. Pity he finds to be grief for the calamity of others, arising from imagination of the like calamity befalling oneself; what we admire with seeming disinterestedness as beautiful (_pulchrum_) is really "pleasure in promise"; when men are not immediately seeking present pleasure, they desire power as a means to future pleasure, and thus have a derivative delight in the exercise of power that prompts to what we call benevolent action. Since, then, all the voluntary actions of men tend to their own preservation or pleasure, it cannot be reasonable to aim at anything else; in fact, nature rather than reason fixes this as the end of human action; it is reason's function to show the means. Hence if we ask why it is reasonable for any individual to observe the rules of social behaviour that are commonly called moral, the answer is obvious that this is only indirectly reasonable, as a means to his own preservation or pleasure. It is not, however, in this, which is only the old Cyrenaic or Epicurean answer, that the distinctive point of Hobbism lies. It is rather in the doctrine that even this indirect reasonableness of the most fundamental moral rules is entirely conditional on their general observance, which cannot be secured apart from government. For example, it is not reasonable for me to perform my share of a contract, unless I have reason for believing that the other party will perform his; and this I cannot have, except in a society in which he will be punished for non-performance. Thus the ordinary rules of social behaviour are only hypothetically obligatory; they are actualized by the establishment of a "common power" that may "use the strength and means of all" to enforce on all the observance of rules tending to the common benefit. On the other hand Hobbes yields to no one in maintaining the paramount importance of moral regulations. The precepts of good faith, equity, requital of benefits, forgiveness of wrong so far as security allows, the prohibition of contumely, pride, arrogance,--which may all be summed up in the formula, "Do not that to another which thou wouldest not have done to thyself" (i.e. the negative of the "golden rule")--he still calls "immutable and eternal laws of nature"--meaning that, though a man is not unconditionally bound to realize them, he is, as a reasonable being, bound to desire that they should be realized. The pre-social state of man, in his view, is also pre-moral; but it is therefore utterly miserable. It is a state in which every one has a right to everything that may conduce to his preservation;[28] but it is therefore also a state of war--a state so wretched that it is the first dictate of rational self-love to emerge from it into social peace and order. Hence Hobbes's ideal constitution naturally comes to be an unquestioned and unlimited--though not necessarily monarchical--despotism. Whatever the government declares to be just or unjust must be accepted as such, since to dispute its dictates would be the first step towards anarchy, the one paramount peril outweighing all particular defects in legislation and administration. It is perhaps easy to understand how, in the crisis of 1640, when the ethico-political system of Hobbes first took written shape, a peace-loving philosopher should regard the claims of individual conscience as essentially anarchical, and dangerous to social well-being; but however strong might be men's yearning for order, a view of social duty, in which the only fixed positions were selfishness everywhere and unlimited power somewhere, could not but appear offensively paradoxical. Entry: C