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Then again the greater length of time comes in: the parents love

their offspring from the first moment of their being, but their

offspring them only after a lapse of time when they have attained

intelligence or instinct. These considerations serve also to show

why mothers have greater strength of affection than fathers.

Now parents love their children as themselves (since what is

derived from themselves becomes a kind of other Self by the fact

of separation), but children their parents as being sprung from

them. And brothers love one another from being sprung from the

same; that is, their sameness with the common stock creates a

sameness with one another;[7] whence come the phrases, "same

blood," "root," and so on. In fact they are the same, in a sense,

even in the separate distinct individuals.