This is the reason why the strongest and most virile men are the most humane; the sternest are most tender; the greatest are most subtle. So inextricably interwoven with their virile characteristics are the finer spun Woman-potencies, as strangely and exquisitely to temper and sensitise their Manhood's powers. And it is why the tenderest, most womanly women are the noblest; the gentlest are the most enduring; the wisest are the sweetest. But no more than Black can be White, Acid, Alkaline, or the Straight line a Circle, can Repose be Action, Sternness be Sweetness, Firmness be Softness, Fierceness be Gentleness; Assertiveness, Selflessness; Boldness, Modesty. Nevertheless, in the hybrid unfoldment of Contrasting traits, Softness tempering Fierceness transforms it to Strength; Sweetness tempering Sternness melts it to Mercy; Assertiveness reinforcing Selflessness nerves it to Devotion; Firmness preserves Softness from lapsing to Weakness; Altruism, inspiring Chivalry, transfigures it to Heroism. But that Fierceness and Strength, Sweetness and Selflessness, have only intensified as, with further evolution, they have extended further into Life and Consciousness, is shown when they tear themselves asunder from their counterpoising attributes. Fierceness is seen then to be more fierce in complex man--because fierce in so many more and deeper issues of Life and Consciousness--than is the fierceness of the gorilla, which manifests largely in muscular savagery; champing of jaws, and beating on its breast as on a drum. So too, the emotion of complex woman is more deeply rooted in her, and is more intense, than is the instinctive emotionalism of the savage woman which expresses itself mainly in reflex movements and hysterical outcries. * * * * * Thus down the ages, man, by way of Fatherhood, has endowed woman ever further with his developing traits of strength and intelligence. Woman, by way of Motherhood, has endowed man with an ever fuller heritage of her attributes of selflessness and intuition. So these poor souls--the Man and the Woman in all men and women--have climbed the steep ascent together, hand in hand, toward the Light. Without the other, neither could have come. So tragically drear and solitary would have been the pilgrimage, save for the spiritual converse of that mystical comrade. Only by way of this psychical comradeship, which solaces the one sex by the inspiration of the other, do men and women win through the terrestrial travail of the human destiny. The mystical Man (who is her father in her) when woman would falter and fail in the fight, whispers, "Courage, dear Girl, go on!" The mystical Woman (who is his mother in him) goes with her son into the murk and struggle of temptation, holding her lamp of The Good and The True and The Beautiful before his blinding eyes. FOOTNOTE: