There were many talks that Will had with Thone. Ala and Bee were generally there, as befitted those of their sex. Sex? It was interesting to Will. The creation of the individual Ego of this strange realm, so different an existence, and yet in fundamental conception so like his own. Already he believed that the same Creator governed both. With strange ways that we mortals so little understand, over all the realms, the states of existence, the Universes that possibly could exist--only one Creator held sway. The Thought--there could be but One. Will said, "You once spoke, Thone, of yourself as Ala's parent. And the necessity of the Thought to the creation of Ego-life. Will you explain that? In our world we have two sexes. Have you also?" "Yes," said Thone. "In the higher forms of life--we humans, as you would say--there are, like yours, two sexes. Call me a man--and Ala a woman. The difference is one of mental capacity; mental qualities, inherent perhaps to the Ego. I call it the Soul, though we have no name for it. I mean that something which makes each individual different from every other. "The qualities inherent to the individual mould and form the mentality. Characterize thus, what we call its sex. The one sex is a complement to the other. An attraction exists between them--a desire for proximity so that of their own inherent force they will draw together. And the one mentality derives force--a mental life-force--from the other. An exchange--for it yields its own necessary qualities in return. Thus we have the mating--the basis of the family. Without it no complete mental health is possible. There is no mentality capable of existing in health by itself." * * * * * "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.