ABSTRACT
St. Augustine saw love as the one true human emotion. All other emotions he saw as derivatives of this single source: "Love eager to possess its object is Desire; possessing and enjoying it is Happiness; shrinking from what opposes it is Fear; being aware of effective opposition is Sorrow." The psychiatrists, in their lurid battle against mental illness have finally concluded that the great taproot of mental illness is love-lessness. The annals of medicine contain numerous studies which point to the importance of love for healthy human functioning. The lack of love has adverse effects on physical as well as intellectual growth and emotional development. Pediatricians use the label "failure to thrive" for children whose physical development is significantly below other children of similar age and sex. The role of love in the exploration of heart disease should satisfy the romantics among us, since poets have long written about "broken hearts" resulting from the loss of loved ones.
