"I should so much like to go to Hergyswyl next summer," said she, "that
you might write the last chapter of the book there, the chapter on
Purity!"

So saying, she clasped her hands, happy in the vision of the little
village, nestling among the apple trees at the head of the tiny bay, the
calm lake, the great religious mountains, the quiet days, spent in work
and peaceful contemplation. She was acquainted with the entire plan of
her husband's work, with the subject of each chapter, with the principal
arguments.

The chapter on Purity was her favourite because of its rational trend.
In it her husband intended to propose and to solve the following
problem: "Why does Christianity exalt, as an element of human
perfection, that renunciation which subjects man to fierce struggles, is
of no benefit to any one, and closes the door of existence to possible
human lives?" The answer was to be deduced from, the study of the moral
phenomenon in its historical origins, and its development; to this study
the first two chapters of the work were dedicated. Selva showed by the
example of the brutes, who sacrifice themselves for their young, or for
companions of their own kind, and are sometimes capable of strictly
monogamous unions, that in inferior animal nature the moral instinct
becomes manifest and develops in proportion as the carnal instinct
diminishes. He maintained the hypothesis that the human conscience was
thus being progressively developed in the inferior species. He now
proposed to return to this conclusion, and to lay down the general
principle that the renunciation of carnal pleasures for a satisfaction
of a higher order signifies the striving of the species towards a
superior form of existence. He would then examine the exceptional cases