José Ortega y Gasset is best known as the author of works on social psychology. But one day he took a bold step for a scientist — he tried to give a scientific definition of love.
“To love anything is to persistently insist on its existence; to reject such a structure of the world in which this object could not exist. Note, however, that this is essentially the same as continuously breathing life into it, as far as it is available to a person — in thoughts. Love is the eternal gift of life.”
José Ortega y Gasset «Etudes of Love» (Ivan Limbach Publishing House, 2004).