Note 4 — Chapter XXVII · CONCLUDING APPLICATION.
George Eliot translation
“They who honour me, I will honour, and they who despise me shall be lightly esteemed.”—1 Sam. ii. 30. “Jam se, o bone pater, vermis vilissimus et odio dignissimus sempiterno, tamen confidit amari, quoniam se sentit amare, imo quia se amari præsentit, non redamare confunditur.... Nemo itaque se amari diffidat, qui jam amat.”—Bernardus ad Thomam (Epist. 107). A very fine and pregnant sentence. If I exist not for God, God exists not for me; if I do not love, I am not loved. The passive is the active certain of itself, the object is the subject certain of itself. To love is to be man, to be loved is to be God. I am loved, says God; I love, says man. It is not until later that this is reversed, that the passive transforms itself into the active, and conversely. ↑