“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.