CHAPTER X.
The Third Sex.
“It is a painful tale you have told me, Professor,” said I, “I sincerely hope you have got a pleasanter sequel to take off its sting. Well, our race has always had its ups and downs. The one seems always to breed the other. So as it has received a check now, that must be a prophecy of better times ahead. After all I shall be disappointed if human wit has been so completely baffled by that problem of population that it has failed to find a way for its regulation without violation of the generous instincts of humanity.”
“Your confidence in human wit is commendable from a patriotic point of view,” returned the Professor, “but for this particular occasion it is not entirely justified. The fact is that not many years ago your race in North America and Europe had so crowded upon its conditions of comfortable existence that it was in imminent danger of a disastrous, if not total collapse. The efforts then made to prevent this, resulted almost in the disorganization of society to such an extent that a collapse from this cause was seriously threatened. Your race and nation have been saved from such collapse and a repetition of one of its numerous relapses into barbarism, not, however, by human wit this time, but by the wisdom and generosity of the race I have the honor to represent.”
“What! the Lunarians?”
“The same. Our people saw the straits to which the human family was reduced, and willing that it should be spared the distress that they had been compelled to undergo before the discovery of the means of protection against themselves, they sent messengers to earth with the necessary facts and instructions.”
“I am amazed, and gratified,” said I, “for this signal proof that benevolence is not confined to any one world or race; but I am impatient to know what this wonderful and essential secret is, that defied the penetration of the wise of my own race.”
“Our belief,” said he, “is that it would not always have eluded them, but they would have failed to apprehend it in time to save the race from present disaster. The Lunarians have always taken a deep interest in Mundane affairs, and have given many hints to man, some of which have been acted upon with good results. But many others could not be properly acted on or even fairly understood, because the education of your race had not prepared them for it. We are often tempted to exclaim “what a stupid race.” But then we remember how very young and immature you are, and we remember too that once we were in a like state of infancy ourselves, and so we exercise charity.”
“But what was the secret you told us?—I am anxious to learn at once, lest some accident shall forever bar my opportunity.”
“Well the secret is the simplest thing in the world, and your scientists have been reproaching themselves all over the earth for not having discovered it themselves. In fact, as they say, they did discover all around it when they lit upon the “Option of Sex.” It is simply the conditions for the production at will of the _Third Sex_.”
“The Third Sex!” I echoed in amazement.
“Yes the Third Sex. I prefer that name, though some have called it the neuter sex, others name it the Double Sex, or the Epicene or Common Sex, others the Hermes-Aphrodite. In some respects it is all of these, or either, or neither. But it is at any rate Third. I am not going to give you the recipe,” said he, “for if I do, when you leave here, and now and go back to the Nineteenth Century, you will be sure to let out the secret prematurely by two hundred years. But I can say that the development of the third sex is in reality no development at all, but an arrest of development, at a particular prenatal period. If you are informed in the science of embryology, you know that in the earliest stage of the embryos of all sexual animals, the sex is not determined, and at that stage there is nothing to distinguish whether the coming individual is to be male or female. It possesses possibilities of either and therefore the germs of both. At a second stage the elements of the essential organs of both sexes are developed in each individual and then the individual is both male and female, but not fully matured or developed. At the third stage the organs distinguishing one of the sexes are carried forward to functional perfection, while those pertaining to the other, are not developed any further, and in some cases are partly undone again. Now if the developement of the embryonic sexual organs be arrested during the second stage of growth or before it, the individual will be neither male nor female, but will belong to the third sex. The manner in which this arrest can be accomplished is the secret we imparted to you 20 years ago, and by means of which the important problem of the control of population can be solved by you as it was long ago done by us.”
“Then you have the three sexes in the moon?”
“We have had them for many ages, in fact, we would not know how to exist if we had but two.”
“It is a wonder to me how you ever could have fallen upon so wonderful an arcanum—that nature seems to be carefully hiding from us.”
“Nature dropped the hint in this as in so many others of our discoveries. There were occasional examples of the third sex produced by nature and born into life, as there have been in the case of the human race as you must know. These examples excited curiosity, which led to the discovery, that they were due to arrested development. Further investigation and experiment showed this arrest to be due to deprivation of a certain class of food, or rather of food in a certain dynamic condition, that is, under certain electric tensions. This condition again depends on the molecular structure of the food elements. When the food is deprived of the constituent plastidules[2] required for the nourishment and development of the tissues composing the embryo organs of sex; these tissues do not mature. And since the emasculation or invalidation of the food does not extend to, or affect the process of assimilation of the same nourishment by the other tissues, such as muscle, brain, nerve, bone, etc., the individual is built up to a symmetrically sexless maturity. And the development of sex is said to be arrested.
“If your people had been as wise as the bees they would have known how to produce the third sex simply as the bees do by supplying the appropriate sort of nutriment; for they, from the same sort of an egg, produce either a queen, a drone or a worker, the latter being of the neuter or third sex; simply by variations in the food and treatment.
“It is said, that it was by observing and following such hints as these that our ancestors learned how to produce the same results the bees have accomplished.”
While the Professor was making this explanation, the question arose in my mind whether this discovery, surprising as it was, was sufficient to rectify the ills that our race had encountered. Would there not be some unforeseen drawback as there had proved to be to the other schemes, that would neutralize the anticipated benefits, or work another disaster as great as the one it was intended to cure. Was the third sex in itself a desirable or happy kind of condition to have. The contemplation of this subject, at first repulsive; when viewed philosophically becomes exceedingly interesting as one of the curious flights of nature. It is true that the specimens of these people she has furnished us on earth, we have commonly regarded as unhappy monstrosities.—But that is no doubt due to ignorance and prejudice, and to the anomalous conditions into which they are born. I expressed myself somewhat in accordance with these reflections, after which the Professor with some hesitation proceeded.
“In your day the family was spoken of as the basis and the bond of society; and by the family was meant a father and mother and a brood of children, all living together and working and caring for each other. The family was the laboratory for the creation and preparation of the citizens of the state. As an instrument for the education and development of the young citizens it was discovered to be, in civil life, inefficient and costly very unequal in its results and entailing an unequal and unjust distribution of its burdens. The state gradually assumed one after another of these former family duties and burdens in the rearing and development of the young, and in doing so, gradually disintegrated the family until there was nothing left of it except a pair of people, a man and a woman. But in this the state only consummated a process that had been begun generations before by the invention of labor saving machinery. The family of your day was already a very much dwindled affair, compared with that of ancient times. Then the members of the family made for themselves their clothing and everything they required and they constituted a military body of which the father was the chief. But when machinery and gunpowder were invented, labor and employment, in both peace and war, became specialized, and in the division of labor that followed, families were gradually separated so as to use the labor of their individual components to greater advantage and new combinations were formed that crossed and obliterated family lines.
“When the families gave up their children to the state to be brought up, it was a continuation of the same process in accordance with the eternal law of economy, and because the machinery of the state for the care of the young was so much better and cheaper than that of the family, that the latter could no longer compete. When this was accomplished the family had lost every function that had ever made it a necessary or important subdivision of society.
“In former times the state of celibacy was regarded as censurable and blameworthy, because the unmarried by failing to raise and provide for a family of children were considered as shirking out of a duty they owed to society. But when it was no longer the business of individuals to provide for the growing citizens, it became a matter of total indifference to the general public whether one was married or not. It became unimportant to the public to know even of what sex any individual might be, and the ancient laws that required the sex to be advertised by their clothes, were repealed and everybody was allowed to dress according to the demands of their business or their fancy. All artificial distinctions of sex such as employment, civil rights and dress were abolished, and the personal pronouns and titles of address that recognized sex were of necessity dropped out of the languages. These things have already transpired in your country and in all the more advanced countries of the world and this has prepared the people to view the introduction of the third sex with philosophical interest and appreciation, instead of vulgar and unreasoning prejudice. You must make allowance for the advance people have made since your day in education and the comprehensiveness of their views. The third sex was looked upon in your day as a monstrosity, because it was rare. Did they regard a seedless orange or lemon or grape as a monstrosity? If you had ever seen a horse with three toes on each foot you would have called him a monstrosity, but the time was as you know, when the horse commonly had three toes and the monstrosity was the animal with only one, such as you regarded in your day as a perfect model of beauty and utility.
“Your race will not regard the third sex with aversion or depreciation when they understand its relations and experience its value.”
“Please tell me,” said I, “what the relations of this sex to the others will be. I suppose of course it will be subordinate to the others, especially the male.”
“Well,” he replied, “your experience in this matter will closely follow ours. As it is in Luna, so it is beginning to be on earth. You are greatly mistaken in supposing our sex to be subordinate to another.”
At the expression “our sex,” I involuntarily gave the Professor a surprised glance.
“Then your affiliations are with that sex?”
“I have indeed that honor.”
I was greatly astonished at this avowal and was greatly mortified to reflect that I had unwittingly said things that must have hurt his feelings, although he gave no sign of being in the least offended. I began an embarrassed apology, but he silenced me by a deprecatory wave of his right joker. He appeared amused rather than offended and evidently excused my unlucky observations as due to the ignorance and inexperience of the human race; which indeed, they were. I am now in doubt about the propriety of these masculine personal pronouns that I have applied when speaking of him but I shall continue to use them for I do not know what sort to substitute for them; certainly none of less dignity would seem appropriate to so dignified and noble a personage.
“In the moon,” the Professor went on, “there is perfect equality between all individuals, regardless of the sex. But the third sex is numerically far the largest and in case of disagreement would easily dominate the other two. But there is and has been from time immemorial perfect harmony as between the sexes, their functions being of necessity complemental and in no way antagonistic. The most responsible places in the state, and the leadership in education, in religion, in public works, engineering and architecture as well as almost all the common occupations, such as manufacturing and storing goods, agriculture etc., are in the hands of the third sex. They are preeminently people of affairs, and for most occupations are decidedly superior to the other sexes, because they are less liable to be distracted from their chosen occupations.
“The males and females generally marry and then their first duties are to each other, otherwise they are employed like the third sex people.
“Married people are desired to conform to the policy of the State Bureau of Population in regard to the distinctions required by it. Otherwise they are under no restriction or obligation. The population is thus kept uniform or increased or diminished in an almost exact and scientific manner. As I have already informed you, all Lunarians are by nature industrious and they take the keenest sort of pleasure in their work. Nevertheless they also play and amuse themselves, and devote much time to intellectual occupations. They have numerous societies and clubs, and the third sex people in particular are organized into associations for said purposes. So are the others also, but their club life is more or less interrupted and broken up by their connubial relations and duties. The third sex people are distinguished for their personal friendships which are very close intimate and tender and of life long constancy. These friendships founded on compatibility of character, similarity of tastes and pursuits the subtile attractions of reciprocal intellectual and spiritual qualities, we regard as finer, more elevated, more noble, more exquisite and more absorbing than the unions formed on the basis of sexual attractions, and they are notably more permanent.”
“Then,” said I, “you have no jealousies of the other sexes—no envy?”
“Why should we have when it is plain we are as happy—we think happier—than they? We would not change places with them, any sooner than you would with a fish, because it can dive into depths you cannot penetrate, or a bird, because it can soar where you cannot. You know you would lose by the exchange. In a society where there are no artificial distinctions on account of sex it is not possible to find any one who would willingly exchange with another. Why should not a non-marrying sex be happy? Do you not remember that one of the great teachers of earth declared that in the kingdom of heaven they neither marry nor are given in marriage? Certainly the third sex is in a better condition to comply with this celestial regulation than either of the others. The same great teacher was apparently so impressed with the superior conditions for happiness possessed by the third sex that he recommended to those of his followers who were able to receive it, to attach themselves to that sex by artificial means[3], and not a few of them have from time to time attempted to do so. But there is a vast difference between the artificial and the natural, the spurious and the genuine. Those who are of the third sex by natural development, are formed symmetrically; the brain and the mind depending on it, with its desires and aversions are formed in unison and harmony with the other bodily parts and organs.
“The same causes that suppress the formation of the latter also prevent the development of the corresponding pieces of brain and mind. There is therefore no clash between mind and body, no mental instincts that the body is physically disqualified from executing. The artificial imitation on the other hand is a mutilate. His symmetry and balance are destroyed because he retains a sexual brain and mind. He is out of harmony with himself, necessarily unhappy, and often a wretch.
“Intellectually the third sex is superior to the others. It is less emotional, more cool, dispassionate, patient and rational. It is more gentle and sympathetic, yet more firm in its conclusions and persistent in its purposes. In size it is between the other sexes the male being the largest—as with you—and from the same cause, polygamy, which as in your case, was practiced by our ancestors. But our sex is physically finer, stronger, more wiry and tough, more skillful in all the arts of life and twenty-five per cent longer lived than the others. In short we possess all the good qualities of the others in an increased degree, as if the material that nature saved by the suppression of sexual qualities, she used for the purpose of re-inforcing and augmenting the remaining ones.
“You are I think now enabled to judge what your third sex is like, that is just now being introduced as an active factor in human affairs. Your race is now for the first time in its history, able in a perfectly scientific manner, to defend itself against its own encroachments. Your long looked for millennium dates from this very moment—the practical introduction of this new factor. The disorders of the past half century that seemed to many to mark the beginning of a chaotic anarchy in reality mark its termination. From this time forward, law and liberty will gradually grow together until, at a period long before the end of this millennium, they will precisely coincide. Things will not be perfect at first. Men will learn better every day how to live and every day will subjugate more and more of the energies and materials of nature to their own ends. The millennium that begins now will be succeeded by ninety-nine more before your race will have passed its high tide and begun its final ebb.”