Epigraph: 'Love was the most ancient of all the gods, and existed before everything else, except Chaos, which is held coeval therewith. . . . . The summary or collective law of nature, or the principle of love, impressed by God upon the original particles of all things, so as to make them attack each other and come together, by the repetition and multiplication whereof all the variety in the universe is produced, can scarce possibly find full admittance in the thoughts of men, though some faint notion may be had thereof.' - Francis Bacon, from The Wisdom of the Ancients, chapter XXVII.