Behind all this “morality” is a secret will to power. Love itself is only a desire for possession; courtship is combat and mating is mastery: Don José kills Carmen to prevent her from becoming the property of another. “People imagine that they are unselfish in love because they seek the advantage of another being, often in opposition to their own. But for so doing they want to possess the other being . . . . L’amour est de tous les sentiments le plus égoiste, et, par conséquent, lorsqu’il est blessé, le moins généreux.”69 Even in the love of truth is the desire to possess it, perhaps to be its
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