RELATION OF THE SEXES.

Auckland Star, Volume II, Issue 474, 18 July 1871, Page 2

RELATION OF THE SEXES.

To persons interested in Mr. Darwin's latest work on Sexual Selection, we commend the following translation from the dialogues of Plato by Professor Jowett:—Let me treat of the nature aiad state of man 5 for the original human nature was not like the present, but different. In the first place, the sexes wer« originally three in number, not two as they are now 5 there web man, woman, and the union of the two, having a name corresponding to this double nature; this one had a real exiiteace, but is lost. In the second place, the

primeval man was round, and had four hands and four feet, back and sides forming a circle, one head with two faces, looking opposite ways, on a round neck, and precisely alike; also four ears, and the remainder to correspond. When he had a mind he could walk as men now do, and he could also roll over and over at a great rate, leasing on his four hafids and four feet, eight in all, like tumblers going over and over with their legs in the air ; this was when he wanted to run fast. Now there were these three sexes, because the sun, moon, and the earth are three, and the man was orijij4lly the child of the sun, the woman of the/irtli, and the man-woman of the moon, whij-i is mado of sun and earth andyihey w^re all round and moved round and round like their parents. Terrible was their might and strength, and the thoughts of their hearts were great, and they made an attack upon the gods; and of them is told the tale of Otus and Ephialtes, who, as Homer says, dared to scale heaven, and would have laid hands upon the gods. Should, they kill them, and annihilate the race with thunderholts as they had done the giants, then there would be an end to the sacrifice &nd worship which men offered to them ; but on the other hand, the gods could not suffer their insolence to be unrestrained. At last, after a good deal of reflection, Zeus discovered a way. He said, "I have a notion which will humble their pride and mend their manners; they shall continue to exist, but I will cut them in two, and then they will be diminished in strength and increased in numbers, this will have the advantage of making them more profitable to us. They shall walk upright on.two legs,and if they continue to be insolent and won't be quiet, I will split them again, and they shall hop about on a single leg." He spoke and cut men in two, like a sorb-apple which is halved for pickling, or as you would divide an egg with a hair : and as he cut them one after another, lie made Apollo give the face .and neck a turn in order that the man might contemplate the section of himself. This would tench him a lesson of humility. He was also to heal their wounds and compose their forms. Apollo twisted the face and pulled the skin al 1 round; he also moulded the breast and toek out most of the wrinkles, much as a shoemaker might smooth out leather upon a lagt. He left a few, however, as a memorial of the primeval change. After the divifion, the two parts of man, each desiring his other half, came together, and threw their arms about one another, eager to grow into one. . . . And if we are not obedient to the go*ds, there is danger that we shall be split up again, and go about in basso-relievo, like the figures having only half a nose which are sculptured on columns, aud that we shall bo like tallies. "Wherefore let us exhort all men to piety. If we are friends of God and reconciled to Him we shall find our own loves (that is, the other halves from which we have been separated), which rarely happens in this case. My words have a wide application— they include men and women everywhere j and I believe that if all of us obtained our love, and each one had his particular beloved, thus returning to his original nature, then our race would be happy. And if this would be best of all, that which would be best UDder present circumstances would he the nearest approach to such a union ; and that will be the attainment of a congenial love. Therefore we shall do well to praise the god Love, who is the author of this gift, and who is also the greatest I enefactor, leading us in this life back to our own nature, and giving us high hopes for the future, that if we are pious, he will restore us to our original state and make us happy and blessed.