The object of this book, originally published in 1922 and addressed to all cultured men and women, was to set forth the primitive manifestations of love and to throw light on those strange emotional climaxes that the author called "Metaphysical Eroticism". She took no account of historical detail, except where it served the purpose of proving, explaining, and illustrating her subject. Nor did she hesitate to intermingle psychological motives and motives arising from the growth and spread of civilisation. The inevitable result of a one-sided glimpse at historical facts would have been a history of love, an undertaking for which she claims to have lacked both ability and inclination. On the other hand, had she written a merely psychological treatise, disregarding the succession of periods, she would have laid herself open to the just reproach of giving rein to her imagination instead of dealing with reality.