Sex exemplifies the positive and negative forces or aspects of the Absolute upon the purely physical plane.

That there is an inner entity thus continuously widening its conscious area through evolution is the only logical deduction from the phenomena of evolution itself. All of that careful examination and cautious ratiocination by which it is proven that the fowl, for instance, has been evolved from the fish, only emphasizes the fact that it must be the same inner entity which was the fish, and which is now the fowl. If it has been necessary to take the first steps towards constructing a bird by building a fish form, this proves that the idea of the bird was present, and slowly modifying the fish throughout its entire existence as a fish. To disconnect the fish from the bird for a single moment is to overthrow the entire evolutionary process. If the one is really the modification of the other, then both throughout their respective evolutionary cycles are as much the same entity as are the child and the man, or the butterfly and the caterpillar. Either they are connected causally by the evolutionary modification of the one from the other, or they are not. If, as evolution declares, they are thus connected, then it is the same entity which has, during the whole period, been slowly evolving differing and more perfect forms.

There is no logical escape from this conclusion.

Without pursuing further the subject of reproduction in general, there are many facts in human embryological detail which go to prove that this process is a specific obedience of the outer Protoplasm to an inner, intelligent force. Among these is the wonderful response of the uterus to the stimulation of the developing embryo. If this were a purely mechanical stimulation, due to the presence of the embryo, other foreign bodies ought to call out the same or a similar response. But this is not the case. The womb will quickly expel any invader of its cavity; even a tumor in its walls is often extruded as a polypus. Instead, however, of attempting to expel the fecundated cell, every effort is made by the uterus to retain and nourish it. There is poured out from the uterine walls an abundant supply of the most highly nutritious, albuminous pabulum from which the growing embryo builds its marvelously perfect body; each tissue under the guidance of the inner entity differentiating out of the common protoplasmic stock.

At this point, perhaps, it may be well to call attention to the grossly incorrect "scientific" teaching concerning the nutrition of the fetus, if but to show how carefully one must examine even the most unquestioned scientific statements if he would avoid steering into the Charybdis of dogmatic assertion in endeavoring to keep clear of the Scyllae of ignorance. This teaching is to the effect that the fetus is nourished through the placenta. The true modus operandi was discovered by the author during a series of experiments extending over 1882 - 83, and was first published in the American Journal of Obstetrics in 1884, in a paper entitled "A New Theory of Fetal Nutrition," from which I shall freely quote. This theory is, that once conception has taken place the fetus is nourished by absorbtion of nutritive material secreted and poured into the uterine cavity from its walls, and that the office of the placenta is purely respiratory, or an oxygen carrier and carbonic acid gas remover. The facts which prove this to be the correct view are:

1. The constant presence of nutritive subtances in the amniotic fluid during the entire period of gestation. 2. The certainty of this fluid being absorbed by a developing fetus constantly bathed in it. 3. The permeability of the digestive tract at an early period, and the necessary entrance therein, according to the laws of hydrostatics, of the albuminous amniotic fluid. 4. The presence of meconium in the intestine, urine in the bladder, and bile in the upper intestine - all in their normal locations. 5. The mechanical difficulties opposing direct nutrition through the placenta. 6. The absence of a placenta until the third month, and its entire absence in the non - placental mammalia. 7. The maternal source of the fluid, as shown by the hydrorrhoeas, etc., of pregnancy.

The presence of meconium - a residue after absorbtive digestion - and of urine and bile, are all incompatible with the theory of nutritive material being conveyed to the embryo through the placenta; but the most prominent fact enumerated above is the constant presence of albumen in the amniotic fluid. This constant presence means that it is not accidental. One of the most plausible theories as to the uses of the amniotic fluid is that it constitutes a kind of water cushion to protect the embryo from mechanical injury. This is no doubt one use. But if this were all we would not find nature supplying a very precious and costly - to the mother - ingredient, or albumen. This would be worse than a blunder. It would be a crime against maternity. If we suppose, with Lusk and a host of other authors, that the source of this fluid "is at first simply an exudate from the tissues of the fetus," and, later, "urine secreted and voided by the fetus," we have the highly "scientific" anomaly of a fetus developing a benignant Bright's disease, voiding urine containing as high as three per cent, of albumen, and growing fat and sturdy under conditions surely fatal to an adult subjected to a similar drain.

In short, the further one searches for the origin and uses of the amniotic fluid the wilder all hypotheses become, unless we accept the simplest explanation - almost invariably the best - that it is secreted by the intra-uterine surfaces for the nourishment of the fetus.

Accepting this, the correspondence of the macrocosmic and microcosmic processes is apparent. The womb represents Cosmic Space - the universal matrix. The fecundated egg focalizes, synthesizes and transmutes or transfers to the material plane the subjective force of the reincarnating entity. From this "point in the circle" exudes not the physical but the spiritual amniotic fluid, the force which causes the physical fluid to flow from the uterine walls, or, in the macrocosm, from Cosmic Space. Following the successive upward steps in the building of its bundle of material sense organs, it is easy to see that each specific process but exemplifies a general law in nature. As has been pointed out, the eye is built up with all its nicety of optical detail and physiological capacity for psychological use without ever having received a single impulse from those light waves to which science would fain teach us it is a specific response. Granite boulders have been subjected to the daily stimulation of direct light waves for untold ages; why are they not studded with eyes? Similarly with hearing. Not only is an exquisitely perfect organ built up in the absence of all but very indistinct sounds, but this organ remains incapable of hearing until certain post-natal processes have taken place.

And so on; not only each sense organ, but also the entire form, is constructed in specific response to an inner directing energy. It is the return to incarnation of an entity having the spiritual potentialities of sense perception, which become potencies through the opportunity afforded by fecundation and gestation. There is no other rational explanation for the function building the form except as the effect of an inner entity having such function in potentia, if not in actu.

Thus process after process in embryology might be taken up and the presence of the inner, designing entity proven; but enough has been pointed out to indicate the train of reasoning which is to be applied to them all, should any desire to carry their investigations further than is possible in this brief and sketchy appendix.