Note 58 — Chapter V · THE BOER WOMAN AND THE MODERN WOMAN'S QUESTION

That on the higher planes of development, where the individuality becomes complex and varied, the unions of Socrateses with their Xanthippes, or fruitless celibacies, are not universal, can only be accounted for by the fact that, unlike the artificial blocks which the carver may shape as he will, the men and women of any society or age are part of one organic body and, except where unhealthy social conditions prevent their being exposed to the action of the same forces, will tend to develop in the same direction, and again to meet on the higher planes of growth as they did in the lower. Therefore the most highly developed and individualized men and women of any society, if they have been exposed to the action of the same cultivating forces, may often be compared to those delicate and intricate puzzles carved from one ball of ivory by the Chinese, which only need to be brought into juxtaposition to show how admirably they harmonize and how essentially they form but one whole.