1126. "Marital love" is thus merely a sympathy whose intention is to promote "possession" and is therefore simply a means whereby one can acquire a greater or lesser degree of mental and physical "ownership" of another being. It is true that "parental love" or "maternal love", which is apparently unselfish, develops from this "love". But "parental" or "maternal love" is not pure either. It too is largely selfish. It does not apply to all children but only to the mother's own child. She feels that this child is part of herself; it has of course issued from her own flesh and blood. She feels an urge to protect this child's organism just as much as her own. "Maternal love" is thus merely an extension of her own drive for self-preservation, which of course becomes apparent through the fact that "maternal love" alone in no way prevents the mother in given situations from taking bread from other children and giving it to her own. A one-hundred-per-cent "mother" would let other children starve if it were necessary in order to feed her own children and provide for their wellbeing. Where she does not do so but cares for other children just as much as her own, and can as little bear that something evil should befall them as she can bear that something evil befalls her own children, it is not "maternal love" that is in evidence; on the contrary, in this case the source of this love is a "degenerated mother" but a greater human being. The fact is that such "love" is a part of the great "neighbourly love" that is "the fulfilment of the law" and constitutes the foundation of the perfect human being's consciousness and mentality.