ANTHROPOLOGY 73 



" Woman, however, being nearer to Nature, furnishes 

 the soil in which the seed of man finds the conditions 

 required for its development. She nourishes, develops, 

 and matures the seed without furnishing any seed her- 

 self. Man, although bom of woman, is never derived 

 from woman, but always from man. The cause of the 

 mutual interaction of the two sexes is their mutual 

 attraction. The tendencies of man cause him to think 

 and to speculate ; his speculation creates desire, his 

 desire grows into passion, his passion acts upon his 

 imagination, and his imagination creates semen. There- 

 fore God has put semen into the imagination of man, 

 and planted into women the desire to be attractive to 

 man. The matrix contains a strong attractive power, 

 to attract the semen, similar to that of the loadstone to 

 attract iron." ^ 



" The relationship existing between the Macrocosm and 

 Microcosm finds its analogy in the relationship existing 

 between the female body and the uterus. The latter 

 may be regarded as a Microcosm in a Microcosm. As 

 the semen of man contains potentially all the organs 

 of the parent body, so there are contained potentially 

 in the uterus all the attributes of the female body, the 

 whole of man's body is potentially contained in the semen, 

 and the whole of the body of the mother is, so to say, 

 the soil in which the future man is made to ripen, because 

 all the essences and forces of her body centre in the 

 uterus, and there the power of her imagination is especi- 

 ally active. Thus is Man the product of a secondary 

 fluid, while the Macrocosmos is the product of a primor- 



th rough the Devarhanic state, finally enters, and from which it is again 

 attracted into new incarnations. 



^ " Thus the matrix attracts the seed of both persons, mixed with the 

 sperm ; and afterwards it expels the sperm, but retains the seed. Thus 

 the seed comes into the matrix^' [Gehaerung), 



*' The matrix" however, does not mean merely the womb of a woman ; 

 the whole body of the woman is a mother, a **ma<rt«" {De Morbor. 

 Matric.). 



