In every man there is something of a woman, and in every woman there are some of the best qualities of a man.
But in the world of which we speak there is no physical possibility for such interfusion. In a linear existence there would be no consciousness of polarity. It makes its appearance first in the plane, and in a hard and unmitigated form.
It is impossible to do otherwise than caricature these beings when we write of them thus in brief. So let us accept the matter frankly, and, without scruple, look at them in the broadest possible manner.
If the reader will cut out the triangles in the corners of the two next pages he will obtain four plane beings, two of which are men, two of which are women. The lines down which the cutting is to be made are marked with a black line. Now having cut out two men, whom we will call Homo and Vir, draw a line on a piece of paper to represent the rim of the world on which they stand, and, remembering that they cannot slide over each other, move them about. It must be remembered that the figures cannot leave the plane on which they are put. They must not be turned over. The only way in which they can pass each other is by one climbing over the other’s head. They can go forwards or backwards. Much can be noticed from an inspection of these figures. Of course it is only symbolical in the rudest way, but in their whole life the facts which can be noticed in these simple figures are built up and organized into complicated arrangements.
Diagram VI.
Diagram VII.
It is evident that the sharp point of one man is always running into another man’s sensitive or soft edge. Each man is in continual apprehension of every other man: not only does each fear each, but their sensitive edges—those on which they are receptive of all except the roughest impressions—are turned away from each other.
On the sensitive edge is the face and all the means of expression of feeling. The other edge is covered with a horny thickening of the skin, which at the sharp point becomes very dense and as hard as iron. It will be evident, on moving the figures about that no two men could naturally come face to face with each other.