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A general account of bonding<br />
preface to this part of this treatise, these other descriptions of feelings and<br />
other types of bonds have an analogy to our notion of feelings and bonds.<br />
10. The distribution of bonds. Perfect things are bonded to perfect things;<br />
noble things and nobility are bonded to noble things; and things which are<br />
imperfect and defective are bonded to things which are imperfect and<br />
defective. As a result, it was said above that part of what is in that which is<br />
to be bound must be present in the bonding agent. A completely chaste girl,<br />
in whom there are no seeds of excitement, is not bound to sensory pleasure<br />
by any star or by any artifice if she has not been touched or embraced, that<br />
is, (I say) she has not submitted herself to the hand of a bonding agent, and<br />
his hand has not reached out to her. I will say nothing about an immature<br />
girl, for in all actions there must be some seed, but not all seeds are fruitful<br />
everywhere. And whose attempt to entice someone who is ill, or old, or frigid<br />
or castrated would not be frustrated (the opposite would apply to those<br />
who would not make the attempt)? In regard to social bonds, a proportional<br />
judgement is quite easy to make.<br />
11. The degrees of bonds. Things in the universe are so ordered that they<br />
constitute one definite co-ordination in which there can occur a transition<br />
from all things to all things in one continuous flow. Some of these things<br />
are immediately related to others, for example, the natural propagation of<br />
individuals of the same species, and in these cases the bonds are blood<br />
related, familiar and easy. Other things are interrelated through various<br />
intermediaries, and all of these intermediaries must be crossed over and<br />
penetrated so that bonds are stretched across from the bonding agent to<br />
that which is bound. Thus, by their generosity to things and by their goodwill<br />
in sharing with these intermediaries, spirits influence inferior, and even<br />
the lowest, things and bind them to themselves. On the other hand, lower<br />
things are raised up with a certain reverence through a natural or rational<br />
sequence so that, through the free consent of higher things, they can bind<br />
to themselves superior things located far above them. And just as there are<br />
various species of things and differences between them, they also have various<br />
times, places, intermediaries, pathways, instruments and functions. It<br />
is very easy to see this and to understand it for all types of bonds and things<br />
that can be bound.<br />
12. The size of a bond. In all things there is a divine force, that is, love, the<br />
father himself, the source, the Amphitrite of bonds. Thus, Orpheus and<br />
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