"And a birth?" Will suggested.
"Communion of thought. The desire, the longing of two closely interwoven mentalities of complementary qualities. When they combine with an intensity of longing, the thought-matter they mutually create brings into existence another, smaller shape like themselves. It is very small—very tenuous—scarce to be seen save by those two who have produced it. It lies inert. Almost formless, though they sit beside it and strive with their loving thoughts of what it should be—strive to give it form. It may continue to lie inert; and at last in spite of their efforts, it may dissolve, dissipate—be gone, back into Nothingness from whence they drew it. The Thought was not within it; it never was anything then save a human longing unblessed.
"Or again, the Thought may be there. It lives. Grows ponderable. Moves of itself. Thinks of itself. Then it is something itself—something independent of all save its creator-divine.... The little nourishment of its body is easily supplied; the mother-parent gives it lovingly the needed gentler nourishment of the mind; daily she adds to it the loving tendrils of her thought-matter so tenuous that to the sight it seems mere light.
"But if the spark is there, glowing brightly, the little Ego lives. Grows in size. Displays a growing mental capacity of its own. Its own mental qualities make themselves known, to identify it as a man-child, or a woman-child. And the Ego, developing, brings it to individuality. It is Itself; unlike everyone else. The new Individual.... That, my friend Will, is a birth."
Will thought a moment. "There is a beauty to it."
Bee said, "I don't quite understand—" She gazed at Will, puzzled; and Will felt and understood her confusion. He said:
"Your explanation, Thone, seems to make Man differ from Woman only in qualities of the Soul and Mind. You do not speak of the body; yet to me, Ala here appears of very different form from yourself."
Thone smiled. "You say, 'to me.' You have answered yourself, my friend. The physical aspect of everything is but the reflected image of it within our own mentality. The gentleness of Ala—those qualities which make her what she is—are seen by you in the form of what you call a woman."
"But," protested Will, "does she not look the same to you?"