sympathy. It is despicable for any one parent to accept a child's
sympathy against the other parent. And the one who _received_ the
sympathy is always more contemptible than the one who is hated.

Of course so many children are born to-day unnaturally mentally awake
and alive to adult affairs, that there is nothing left but to tell
them everything, crudely: or else, much better, to say: "Ah, get out,
you know too much, you make me sick."

To return to the question of sex. A child is born sexed. A child is
either male or female, in the whole of its psyche and physique is
either male or female. Every single living cell is either male or
female, and will remain either male or female as long as life lasts.
And every single cell in every male child is male, and every cell in
every female child is female. The talk about a third sex, or about the
indeterminate sex, is just to pervert the issue.

Biologically, it is true, the rudimentary formation of both sexes is
found in every individual. That doesn't mean that every individual is
a bit of both, or either, _ad lib._ After a sufficient period of
idealism, men become hopelessly self-conscious. That is, the great
affective centers no longer act spontaneously, but always wait for
control from the head. This always breeds a great fluster in the
psyche, and the poor self-conscious individual cannot help posing and
posturing. Our ideal has taught us to be gentle and wistful: rather
girlish and yielding, and _very_ yielding in our sympathies. In fact,
many young men feel so very like what they imagine a girl must feel,
that hence they draw the conclusion that they must have a large share
of female sex inside them. False conclusion.

These girlish men have often, to-day, the finest maleness, once it is
put to the test. How is it then that they feel, and look, so girlish?
It is largely a question of the direction of the polarized flow. Our
ideal has taught us to be _so_ loving and _so_ submissive and _so_
yielding in our sympathy, that the mode has become automatic in many
men. Now in what we will call the "natural" mode, man has his
positivity in the volitional centers, and women in the sympathetic. In
fulfilling the Christian love ideal, however, men have reversed this.
Man has assumed the gentle, all-sympathetic role, and woman has become
the energetic party, with the authority in her hands. The male is the
sensitive, sympathetic nature, the woman the active, effective,
authori