The very measure of time during which our solar system will endure is given, had we but skill to compute it, in the motion of the pith balls which dance between the poles of the electrical toy. For the fraction of a second required for equilibrium to become established in these is in strictly accurate proportion to the time required for the same condition to obtain throughout our solar system.

All this may, no doubt, seem a digression, yet a proper conception of this law of opposite poles or opposing states of the same force, of Duality in Unity, as exemplified in the electrical law of attraction and repulsion, is absolutely necessary to the proper conception of the relation sex bears to the human soul. We can perceive that as the electrical energy thus vibrates from plane to plane of substance in its efforts to establish an Universal equilibrium - an equilibrium which the very law of its own being makes possible only in infinity, or never - the whole Universe will thus gradually become differentiated into great planes, each of which will be negative to that above, and positive to that below. We can also perceive that on any plane where the process of electrical equilibrium is in active progress the process of evolution is of necessity also in active progress. Such is the condition of our Universe at present, in which there are no two molecules exactly similarly electrified, and in which the matter, in a state of unstable equilibrium, is electrified, controlled, and ensouled by electrical or life energy from a higher plane which, compared to this lower, is infinitely more stable.

Now Consciousness, Force, and Substance are three hypostases of the One Absolute or Unknowable, and are eternally associated. Therefore, the human soul, being easily demonstrable as an ego or entity occupying a plane of consciousness far above that of the moleculelar cells of its body, is, when compared with the unstable condition of the latter, on a plane of stable, controlling equilibrium. On its own plane, the processes of evolution or of equilibrium having been completed for the cycle, the opposing forces of duality are at rest. It is therefore stable and positive to its body; is a conscious Laya Centre, so to speak, through which flows consciousness that ensouls, experiences, and controls the evolutionary modification of the eternal life-energy seeking equilibrium on the plane below, or that of the body. Hence, the Human Soul, or that which in Theosophy is technically known as the Higher Ego, or the Reincarnating Ego, is sexless. It has after an almost infinite cycle of duality rebecome Unity on its own stable plane, and that differentiation which would correspond to sex upon this is unknown.

But as the soul, the Pilgrim in the Cycle of Necessity, descends by incarnating in these human-animal forms, in order to consciously conquer this plane where the dual action of the One Life, or evolution, is in active operation, it has of necessity to incarnate in bodies having now the preponderance of the negative and again of the positive manifestations of the One Life. Hence, though being itself sexless, it incarnates now in a series of male forms, and again in a series of female forms, in its necessarily alternating efforts to bring about conscious harmony or equilibrium upon the molecular plane. It can never know all the possibilities of life or of consciousness here without touching the two poles - without thus experiencing here the two aspects of the One Life.

Looked at from this higher view-point, the sex problem is solved. Reincarnating now as a male and again as a female, the human soul symmetrically widens its conscious area and stores the results of these experiences in both the poles of existence upon its own stable plane. Therefore is all the talk and all the hope of man and woman becoming similar mentally, or in any other way, except as countless ages of evolution shall have rounded out and equilibrated both aspects of life, but childish babbling. They are at the opposite poles of conscious being upon this plane - poles which can never meet nor merge here, but which can only be unified when the sexless, passionless human soul shall have acquired all necessary or possible experiences; when it shall have completed its conscious partaking in, and supervision of, the processes of evolution now in active operation.

Thus by recognizing and teaching the true relations our souls bear to our bodies, that upon its own habitation the soul is sexless and passionless, Theosophy offers but another view-point from which to obtain a broader, more philosophical conception of human life and its duties, responsibilities, and opportunities. The recognition of the law of Karma, or the law of Cause and Effect, which compels the further recognition of the fact of the necessary reincarnation of the human soul under this law, will restore the relation of the sexes to the pure and holy condition from which it has been degraded by ignorance.

All churches unite in declaring marriage to be a sacrament, but which of them knows or teaches why this is so? The very term "sacrament" has been debauched by sensual philologists into a phallic significance. The mental attitude of the West toward the sex relation is simply appalling. Instead of being regarded as the solemn, sacrificial avenue through which a human soul - a future god - returns to take up again its life tasks; instead of being limited solely and religiously to procreative purposes for thus furnishing holy and pure tenements for those bound to us by the tenderest ties, the most loving associations, in past lives - for those for whom we would have died then and would die now after they join us - how do we regard it? How have our very priests and ministers taught us to regard it? Let the recommendation of St. Paul, let the classic couplet of Martin Luther - holy monk and Founder of Protestantism - be the answer.

Marriage in the West is but little better than legalized prostitution; its high and holy office unrecognized; its pure, creative passion brutalized, sensualized and entirely perverted. It is the duty and the mission of Theosophy to correct and reform all this. It can only be accomplished by and through our deeper philosophy of human life; our sterner, higher code of human ethics. No time-serving Martin Luther nor specious-pleading St. Paul can ever distort or pervert ethical conceptions founded upon demonstrable laws of nature, together with the most satisfactory logical and philosophical deductions and inductions therefrom. We must teach the West to recognize in woman not the weak, passive vehicle, created as an avenue to a sensuous Paradise, but a soul transiently at the opposite pole of material existence, and a pole which, of necessity, has in it as deep a significance, as god-like potentialities, as that which our ignorant, brutish egotism has caused us to regard as superior. It must be recognized that the sex which is hers in this life may be ours in our next - must be ours in many future lives ere we attain a symmetrical evolution of character.

The law of Karma, ever restoring disturbed equilibrium, is omnipotent and inviolable; and by our very attitude towards the opposite sex, be it that of man or woman, we are creating character traits which may have to be sharply corrected by unpleasant experiences in that opposite sex during our next life.

By the light thus afforded from the standpoint of the true soul must the sex relation be comprehended; and, once rightly understood, few teachings are capable of a more quick, more sure amelioration of a vast amount of human woe. In this relation we consciously take at least a minor part in the creative processes of nature; we claim a portion of our future heritage as gods and guardians of lower worlds. Its abuse, therefore, reaches to the very depths of our spiritual being in its karmic effects. Let the gibbering inmates of insane asylums, let the wan sufferers from nameless, shameful, terrible diseases, testify whether this is true or not upon the physical plane; let our Police records, our Divorce Courts answer upon the moral plane. Let us restore marriage to its pristine purity; let us recognize that sex is of this plane only; that the soul ought to - is entitled to - live far above the unreasoning desires of the animal kingdom below us, to which and even lower than which we descend when our motive is but sensuous desire. By conquering this tyrant which we have invited to occupy the throne of our mind, we shall be free to use the creative energy, now perverted and wasted, upon intellectual and spiritual planes.

So shall we re-enter the Paradise from which we have been expelled; so shall we reclaim once more our lost heritage.

"What is the flaming sword but sin,

Which blinds our eyes at Eden's gates? Lo, purity shall enter in,

Nor fear all adverse gods, nor fates!"

And we shall re-enter; not clothed with the raiment of innocence, which is but the garment of ignorance, but with that infinitely surpassing it; with robes whose web is the shining threads of perfect knowledge, and which is crossed by the woof of purified passions, of slain desires, of upward strivings, of toilings for others, of daily and hourly sacrificings of the lower to the Higher Self.